Even Astarion's whip-quick senses can't keep time well enough to track it. He was— gods, his head hurts. His hand is worse, pinned under him and threatening to split itself in half from jagged pain too unfamiliar to make sense to a set of nerves already at their limit. And his first thought is— Cazador. Cazador, because it has to be. No one else brings his world screaming to its knees like this but him. No one else would've torn him from the nightmare of oily wet eyes and squirming tentacles behind a film of keratinous glass just to make a point. No one else would've come for him.
And no one else would make him pay.
Only it isn't.
It isn't....?
His fist (next) blink is stuttering. It aches against the smear of ruddy crimson blotting along the dull edge of his vision, but with it, he sees a sickly blaze of burn-bright green swimming hotly overhead: tearing the landscape— or the sky— right along its middle. Dividing it in the way a portal ought to, but there's nothing here worth recognizing: that arcane outline smells as wrong as it looks. And— ]
—oh, hells.
[What are those things? What are those things? The abhorrent roiling masses lurching just nearby— one of them seeming to notice (he can't tell, it has too few or too many eyes but) enough of a rotted face to make its twist in his direction feel about as deliberate as his own breathless gawking back.
His own—
Fuck— wait— oh, fuck—
(Another flicker of movement. Another glimpse of garnered attention now that he's not painting the image of something dead, most like, no matter how stock-still he's gone on pure reflex alone. Forgetting air again. Forgetting sight. Forgetting pain. The soft twitch of his uninjured hand trying desperately to crawl down slow towards his hip despite the tremor that upsets its path.
The counterweight that is his mind only catching up a full second later when it finally urges: dagger.)
He'd thought at first it was because he was near Tevinter's border. Foolish in retrospect, given all he's heard and knows about the incident with the Inquisitor and Corypheus, but still: he'd thought it was due to all the magic in the air. And yet the further south he'd gone— slicing and hacking his way through Nevarra and the countless hoards of demons and Abominations populating it— the worse it had gotten. To the point where he's learned now how to feel one in the distance based on how badly his lyrium aches (for all the good that does him); to the point where he's actually lost track of how many times he's had to save some wandering caravan or displaced would-be slaves from demons attacking.
He shouldn't be surprised that approaching Kirkwall means that yet another's opened. The Veil is thin here, the land cursed and soaked with the blood of thousands upon thousands of slaves; of course a series of rifts would show up. And yet still Fenris groans softly under his breath as he feels the pressure drop and watches the air ripple, green light sparking and flaring under a darkened sky. He readies his sword, waiting for the inevitable lurching groan of a sloth demon or the roar of rage from a firey spirit— and indeed, he hears both calling as the Fade opens herself, but—
Something else pops out too.
White hair. Pointed ears. An elf, and Fenris has no time to wonder where or how or why, for he's a helpless thing. Sprawled there as if the demons might not sense him if he's still, eyes wide with terror as he stares at the lurching figures crawling towards him— and whether or not he's reaching for a weapon is irrelevant, for he isn't fast enough. Four demons lope towards him, eager in their need to feed and tear and consume. More lurk just beneath the rift's edge, a pride demon's groans eerie filling the air as it tries futilely to emerge.
Fenris rushes forward, sword in hands, a battle cry cutting through the demons' seething whispers as he puts himself between the spirits and their prey.
What choice does he have? He could no more leave this elf to his fate than he could fly, for it isn't in his nature. There's little spared for the figure now behind him, not beyond making sure he stays put. The demons rush forward, changing their target to the most attention-grabbing thing in the area. With a flash of his blade he cuts one down; spinning swiftly he vivisects another, splitting it in half with a sickly squelch. His lyrium flares, all of him suddenly a hazy azure; he reaches into the third demon, gauntlets rematerializing just to slice through flesh and blood and muscle. But the fourth— oh, the fourth is cleverer than the rest, and as its fellows fall one after another, it targets easier prey: claws outstretched towards the pale elf, its maw opened and salivating for the thought of feasting on real flesh.
Too late Fenris turns, seeing his mistake; with a cry he dashes forward, sword swinging desperately as he tries to slice at it from behind, but he's too far, he's too slow, it's not enough, not enough—]
On your feet— get back!
[A roar of a command, and his feet aren't fast enough, his sword's blade swinging uselessly through the air.]
[He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know what he's looking at. He doesn't know what in the wide, bloody hells themselves just slid into centerview between himself and that dark mass of writhing shapes other than the fact that it smells of cracking thunder before rain and sounds like something much more human— a blue-limned silhouette. A blur. A seething force of nature that might as well have him reeling in confusion just as much as all the rest while his heart hammers in his throat (gods above, he's going to be sick)—
Palms to the earth and scrabbling in the uphaul to his knees, his feet. The segue of slight seconds that barely tears his heel away from wet-slick jaws that sought to close down on it— reverberating echoes of empty air over empty air: one good miss deserves another.]
Shit—
[It isn't Cazador.
He almost wishes it was. There's predictability in that. Not the smallness he feels hunched down low under a ruined sky, or lurching back onto his feels in preparation just to run while that crude thing wheels back onto its prior would-be assailant in a panicking correction: snapping, snarling, surging, growling through its ruined excuse for a throat with a hunger that suits more a mindless thing than the intelligence it bears in plucking out its targets.
Red eyes snap towards the side.
What he sees: cliffs. Fields. Rocky hillsides and the slope of ruins not so far. A break in the overheated fray where he could bolt into a sprint and put all of this behind him. And you know, fool thing that he (is)n't, he's considering it. He's considering it.
One more look cast that glittering outline's way. The silent, stricken weighing of ability against threat. His right eye stings. It's barely open. His arm is as raw as flayed skin to the bone, and hotter still. He's dizzy. He's breathless. He should run.
Far, far away. So far that these demons can't turn on him; far enough that he can make it somewhere populated, where there are more targets for a demon to choose from and he can safely call upon more than just some stray elf to defend him. Frankly, he ought to run anywhere that isn't near this rift, anywhere that isn't here, where the stench of dead demon fills the air and the endless shifting of the veil glitters against the skyline.
But some quiet part of Fenris is grateful that he hasn't yet.
It's foolish. He knows it as he rushes forward and his blade finally connects, the beast's head neatly severed from its shoulders (if demons can even be said to have such normal features). It's an instinct born of loneliness, that emotion already exacerbated by his proximity to Kirkwall. This elf means nothing to him and vice-versa; there's no point in getting attached, for people only ever leave you. He's learned that by now. Besides: this man is likely sticking around only out of terror, Fenris realizes. He's probably wondering if Fenris himself is a demon, wraith-like as he is. It's happened before.
So as he feels the Fade ebb a tiny bit (temporary, surely, for these things always come in waves), Fenris lets his lyrium fade. What was a wraith swiftly becomes an elf, tall and proud. He holds his sword in one hand; the other he holds out palm-upwards, a peaceful gesture.]
[He's frozen through his shoulders under what's left of a broken sky. Broken scene. Broken comprehension with its fangs sunk in deep into his flesh until he can feel the puncture marks pushed clean through everything he's ever known. Rime-still and sharp and wary on instinct in a way that leaves him sunken over the bow of his own spine. A pale silhouette made paler by the overlap of damp curls and hunkered contours and torn silk. Thin and wild. Kissed by shock (a thousand times) instead of comfort, it's absolutely true he's staying out of fear.
Terror is right.
And simultaneously immensely wrong.
Blood spills. A blade drops low into the thick of it as hadal ripples of pure silver-blue ebb back under marked skin. Feathered armor. Alien and— Hells' wretched Teeth, perhaps it is all shock and animal instinct leading Astarion by the bloodied nose— because the very next laid thought throughout that healthy sense of lurching dread is: beautiful. Remarkable. Magnificent the way only dislocated reality ever could be at its heart: that purely primal difference between awestruck and afraid defined by stories about the gods appearing in mortal guises never made much sense to him before.
Now, he doesn't know what to think. How to think, no less. The sky's still splintering about the shoulders of an elf whose gore-slicked stature conceptually rises tall enough to meet it in that moment, contrasted with the fact that Astarion's more on his heels than standing (or bracing) in an offset slouch, blunt nails dug into the dirt. Ears pinned back flat. Eyes wide.
(There's got to be a joke somewhere in all this mess about how he can't stop himself grasping for the very first offered palm that moves to save him at his worst. And if there is, maybe he'll at least get to laugh about it later when he pays for it in blood, giving past another swing at proving prologue in the margins.)
For now, he shifts his weight. Tentative. The careful consideration of keeping his dagger in his good hand while the one that aches and seethes is lifted, carved right through by a shard of avid green. (Oh, that's not good.)]
I—
[What are you, he thinks in the half-beat before his fingertips touch gauntleted metal. What are you.
Before something in that foreign magic rolls out like a shockwave, and the agony that jettisons from it up his arm throws him down onto his knees.]
It's a bewildering blur of sensations: the shock of seeing just a flash of eerie green seared over the man's palm even as he cries out in pain; the sympathetic shock of his own lyrium flaring in magical repulsion, searing heat rippling up his arm (painful, yes, but no worse than usual, no worse than it always is whenever he gets to close to raw lyrium or a spell's effects). Is the elf a mage? But what mage— especially one grown— reacts like that to his lyrium? It's always the opposite: they linger near him, for he acts as battery, not repellent. And for that matter, what mage has that mark on their hand? He's heard tales of the Herald of Andraste, but that's the farthest thing from his mind—
But there's no time to think. Not a mage, he thinks vaguely, for it makes the most sense— and that's all the permission he needs to allow himself to kneel down.]
What is it?
[Make no mistake: he is wary. He doesn't know what's happening or what that marking means; he doesn't even know what it is, really, save that he'd be a fool to discount its connection to the rippling Fade behind them.
But he's so clearly terrified. He'd reached out so tentatively, acting like a wounded dog whimpering as it faced down an outstretched hand, terrified that it might turn to beat him in a split-second. And Fenris knows that fear, oh yes. He's seen it a thousand times on the slave caravans; it's been over a decade, but he can still recall the feeling. Whoever this man is, whatever just happened, Fenris does not think him a threat. Not willingly.]
Your hand . . . is that something that was not there before? Some mark from the Fade . . . did you touch it?
[Perhaps he inadvertently touched it. Fenris hesitates, and then, gently:]
Not a lot of things, in fact, though they'll have time to go over all that later (or: they won't, and they'll die here, or: Astarion will die here, and whatever— whoever— this is will go on just like everyone else he's met outside cold halls. Vacant rooms. The way of the world).
Overturned.
Flickers of crimson through black. Low lashes and the constant up-tick of his stare, checking again— and again— and again— as he moves to roll back the thick of his own sleeve over a dirt-encrusted forearm (charming). Palm upturned to show that livid green divide run hot right through his skin: glassy in the light and yet that much angrier with more overstimulated magic than something so small should ever house. Throbbing. Hating. Spitting.
Bristling with all the avidity of an animal— albeit not directly to that lyrium.]
I've no idea. [Is gritted. Comes thick through the corners of his fangs while he pants loosely just to empty out the urge to— what. Sink lower? Bite? Snap like that magic in his fist? Run?]
[He says it almost absently, his focus on the mark. At his side, his fingers curl as he fights the urge to touch. There's no doubt about it: it looks like a mark of the Fade. And though Fenris has never met the Inquisitor, he doesn't need to have seen their markings himself to know the similarity.
(He notices those nails, too. Thicker and sharper than an elf's ever usually grows; in truth, they remind him more of qunari nails than anything. And those fangs peeking out, those crimson eyes that glitter in the darkness . . . but the elf doesn't look half-Qunari, not beyond those features. A mystery that does not yet need to solved, but he notes those traits all the same).
His eyes flick up, and he adds:]
Where did you—
[But behind him, the Veil has decided it's waited long enough. Power surges through the air, eerie crackling leaving his teeth and his lyrium both buzzing; with a grunt, Fenris rises to his feet.]
There will be time for questions later. Come, if you wish— or run if you don't. But it will not be long before another wave comes, and I cannot fight them forever. And given I have no means to close these things . . .
[He glances at Astarion's hand again— but if the elf is half as bewildered as Fenris feels, he doesn't either.]
['Grasping at straws' falls short. In fact, 'grasping at straws on the precipice of Nessus itself whilst being torn apart from the inside out, half-starved and bleeding' still manages to fall short insofar as descriptors of any sort go.
Another splitting shock courses through him in syncopation. Microcosmic echoes of the surging pressure overhead— shattering the illusion of misaligned existence: for as long as it takes for pain to blow out all his senses, they're nothing more than two elves caught in the midline of a maelstrom.
And in that sense?
Yes, he's grasping at something less concrete than straw.
(And yet, it's the simplest choice in the world. The only choice. The obvious choice, animal and blaring in the vertigo-sick hollow of his skull:)]
I can't— [It's an explanation, not a refusal. That's the intonation cut short when his jaw bites down across itself and he shudders in a wince.
Forget it. Forget explanations. Forget details. Circle back towards his choice.] Lead the way and get me out of here—!
[No more breath wasted on words: swiftly Fenris heads west, keeping a watchful eye on that rift all the while until at last it disappears beneath a hill and out of sight. At one point he thinks he hears the mournful groaning of a demon, but if so, it isn't his problem anymore.
He's camped a little less than a mile away, his things neatly arranged (and trapped, thank you very much, for petty thieves steal almost anything they can't nail down). A horse grazes idly nearby, unbothered by Fenris' return and uninterested in his newfound companion. It isn't cozy, exactly, and it's a camp geared far more towards practicality than comfort, but on the other hand, there's a fire that Fenris sets to building, and a soft place for his newfound companion to settle while he gets his bearings.
For his part, Fenris busies himself with the fire. It's for practicality's sake, yes, but for the sake of his companion. He still looks so bewildered, and while Fenris does want answers, well. He can give him a chance to catch his breath.
At last it's done, and Fenris sits back. Tugging a small bag out of his belongings, he picks a few strips of dried meat out of it and tosses it lightly to the figure across the fire.
(Is he basing all this on how the Fog Warriors acted those first few days? Perhaps. Not consciously, but he does remember how deftly they threaded the needle between giving him space and offering him companionship, and how much that helped).]
My name is Fenris.
[He nods at the bag he just threw.]
There's food there, if you would like. And I have water.
[He doesn't look like a slaver. Doesn't smell like one. And Cazador's lackeys are either enthralled or as unscrupulous as it gets— neither of which seems to fit the bill for this strange elf (Fenris— he says, and it's only shy of Fenrir, which is— what? It's nothing. No marker for location or culture Astarion can track,) and his behavior: who in the lightforsaken Nine pushes himself over to tend to the fire when he's not making the questionable choice of drumming up another place for someone else to stay?
For Astarion to stay.
No one.
No one sane.
No one with a mind for common sense or the dangers that a sharp knife poses (but he'd dispatched those creatures well enough, hadn't he?)
All of it is maddening. Too much. Too overwhelming.
He stands by the edge of camp for far too long even when prompted, waiting for either the horse or its owner to turn ire his way while he bleeds from that cut across his right eye. His left palm and all the scrapes littering his skin. Annoying, but shallow— prompting a momentary closing off of everything. From his aching lid and clouded vision to the persona he projects: his arm still throbs like something broken; his nerves feel frayed; his throat dry; his head sharp and stinging all at once under the bone, and without that glaze of ruined green Astarion wonders how long he has to waste before daylight closes in just as eagerly as those wretches had been.
Moving to sit down feels like it would only bring it on all the quicker.
So he stands.]
Why are you doing this?
[Sucking in air through his teeth feels like pulling ice through his throat down into his chest.
[He keeps his expression as open as he can as he glances up at the other elf.
What a question. Not an unfounded one, not at all, and yet not one Fenris can easily answer. And yet he has to answer it well, for it might be the most important conversation they ever have. Wherever this elf came from (and watching as he stands rigid with terror, Fenris thinks— not wholly incorrectly, as it will turn out— that he has a good idea of where that might be), it was somewhere where the rules of survival were plain. Kill or be killed. Help someone and have that repaid with betrayal and grief. Survival of the fittest, where only you mattered, and there was no sense in anything so soft and weak as sentiment.
How could he not flinch from someone seemingly altruistic?
(Imekari, you're hurting my neck, Shokah had said to him crossly, her wrinkled face even more creased with annoyance, and it was so utterly disarming that he'd sat right down, bewildered right out of his fear).]
It is not my habit to watch someone die at the hands of demons if I can prevent that. I do not find pleasure in the pain of others— at least, not innocents— and those monstrosities are vile.
[He says it slowly, certain to not make a single move. Like with a spooked dog, stand right now and the other elf will go running.]
As for now . . .
[Hmm . . . but honesty is nearly always the best policy. That was how it was with Shirallas, wasn't it? He can almost feel the similarity. Both elves have the same rigid posture, the snarling defensiveness that covers up so much fear . . . or perhaps that's just how it is for elves in their world. Fenris tips his head, keeping the other elf in his sights.]
I do not have an angle. Nor do I expect anything in return— at least, not for tonight. Do not mistake altruism for charity; I will not carry you forever, and if you wish to stay by my side, you will work to earn your place. I am a bounty hunter, and my prey are the slavers who patrol these borders.
But I will not sell you. I will not rob you. And if you wish to leave right now, Kirkwall is some fifteen miles to the south— I will not stop you from leaving.
[Hmm. It doesn't quite feel enough, and so he adds, not unkindly:]
But if you wish for more reason than just that . . . there was a time when I was fleeing from my master, and I needed help. I was fortunate enough to receive it.
You look as though you are the same. And while I will not demand you tell me where you came from or what you're fleeing, anyone with eyes can see you're lost.
He has to blink through his unobstructed eye to focus up. And he's not swaying (he's learned after two centuries of torture), because his spine knows better than the rest of him to go rigid when he bleeds. It's his mind that always sabotages him.
Not his siblings. Not the servants. Not even the people he hunts down.
Just his mind.
He can't trust it, least of all now— but he swears he hears the vision perched before him say he was a slave once. Maybe that's delirium talking. Or— or a feedback loop, more like: a bounty hunter who tracks slavers would pick up bait at least, and if Astarion's deluded mind wants to drum up sympathy in hallucination by weaving up a story about a runaway turned mercenary, well, at least the first part makes some sense.
His next blink is feathering. He draws his arm across his face to wipe his sight lines clean, ignoring the bitter sting of sweat lodged in his wounds. Everything hurts, but without pretense crammed obtusely in the way, he thinks on the word master— and looks down at his palm.]
Lost is....[Dithering, that little exhale. Amused, though it's a wan grin he summons up.]
That about sums it up, doesn't it?
[Not just the assumption, no. Everything.
At a good distance away the slow nag hasn't startled yet; Astarion chances his luck by moving at least a few steps closer to the fire before measuring her focus and sitting down, hands across his knees. Shirt a tattered mess. His doublet— gods, he doesn't even know where he lost it.]
To answer your much earlier question without the entire world splitting above our heads: I don't know what magic this is— or how it worked its way in under my skin— any more than you do. One minute I was running errands for my master, and the next—
[Ah. Slithering in the dark. Desperation. Shrieking.
[Good, he thinks to himself, his inner relief expressed only in the soft exhale he emits as the other elf finally sits. It would not have killed him to watch him disappear in the darkness, but he's glad he didn't. The man looks as though he could barely last a mile, never mind manage to make it all the way to Kirkwall even if he was left alone.
And ah, there it is . . . but how odd, for it sounds as though the rift forcibly plucked him from Tevinter to here. He believes him, but it's still odd.]
Well, you are in the Free Marches now. And while I will not say slavers do not prey here, your chances as an escaped slave are far better than they once were.
[He's already tossed food his way, but now Fenris reaches into his pack, digging until he can find a spare bit of cloth. That he offers more gently, holding it out instead of throwing it like a damned savage.]
For the blood, [he says, waving a hand over his own eye to demonstrate.]
And if your master is anything like mine was, it will take him some time before he begins to mount the hunt in earnest.
As for the magic under your skin . . . I have heard of its ilk, but I do not know enough about it to offer you any kind of answer. But it is because of that I am heading towards Kirkwall. Those rifts have been opening up everywhere for the past two years, [and he says it because he remembers what it is to be a slave and not know anything beyond the borders of your master's estates.] I have heard of a gathering of people who might have those self-same markings located in Kirkwall— an offshoot of a greater organization dedicated to battling the forces that first began planting all these rifts everywhere. If such a rumor is true, they might be able to guide you.
[But that's so much information. So then, not unkindly, he adds:]
If none of that makes sense, I will not fault you. It can be . . . overwhelming, these first few days.
[Kirkwall. Free Marches. It repeats the theme thus far: which is to say that he knows nothing. Recognizes nothing. The only immediate thing shocking about it being that it doesn't send a cold chill up his spine.
(After all, why should it? Taking that proffered cloth affords one more long look at the glint of living green embedded deep within his skin, and all he can think of is that whatever this is or wherever he is, he—)]
Overwhelming was finding myself surrounded in so much agony I couldn't see straight. [Astarion dryly croaks back around a wince that sees him daubing at his face. The movements more than somewhat random; he's no idea where the blood across his skin is anymore, not that it matters much.
His best guess is: everywhere.]
So far, you make for better company.
[Another slow press at his face, before his uncovered eye lifts itself in observation.] I'll gift you bonus points if you tell me what you do you know about those rifts.
[He huffs a laugh in response to that dry retort, his eyes flicking over the pale elf as he tends haphazardly to himself. Only now that they're finally sitting do the extent of his injuries make themselves known— and yet though some part of Fenris internally debates, he doesn't rise just yet.]
Gift me your name instead, and I will consider it.
[But no, no, he'll pay his portion upfront.]
I know they act as doorways between here and the Fade— the realm of magic and demons. [For if this man doesn't even know Kirkwall and the Free Marches, oh, what a sheltered thing he must be. Some isolated slave who tended to a doddering old man out in the countryside, perhaps . . . but even then, he must know what magic is. He must have some idea of what life is, articulate as he is.]
And I know they are off-shoots of the initial Breach— the first, and largest, doorway that was deliberately opened by Corypheus, a monstrous magister from centuries ago who revived himself and now wages war on the world.
[Hmm.]
When you emerged . . . did you travel through the Fade itself? It would be a strange place. Unnervingly . . . [Mmph. He waves a hand.] Impermanent. Or were your injuries from before?
[Is the gently-posed answer offered up once he finally takes his eyes off of the figure seated just before him. Trusting in everything that surrounds him despite the highest stakes imaginable still remaining deep in play, enough so that his fingers can at least go back to carving all the dirt and grit out of his scrapes, bit by irritated bit; he doesn't know why the sound of his own name feels like a knife at his own throat in those small seconds. The danger of something sharp perched at his skin, ready to punch through.
Some part of him determined to measure out all the odds stacked up against him, possibly.
Survival instincts.]
And unless I've developed amnesia [he chances, realizing that he very much might have, considering just how little he recalls in the lulls between grander beats of kidnapping and disaster and the sort of rescue that still has him reeling while he crawls back in towards lilting normalcy.] I can't say that I've ever heard of the Fade, either.
Not enough to tell you where it is, or whether or not I did, or—
[This time when he glances up, he squints. Head cocked sharply towards his shoulder (ignoring the way it reopens a fresher trickle of dark red. damn).]
[Oh, his eyes are wide while he glances down again to gawk right at his palm, dropping the whole of his pale curls down across his shockrun expression, blaming sluggishness on injury and the sickness that's washed in from the cruelty of bloodlet starvation. How did he not realize it till now? How did he not catch on?
Corypheus, he's never heard that name. A war waged with the entire world? That implies— well it implies the entire bloody world now, doesn't it?? But if that'd been the case, he'd have known. He'd have been told. Learned of it— even in isolated captivity he was privy to the stories of Bhaalspawn and Szass Tam. Gossip traveled to the kennels; whispers were audible through walls. He drank it in.
[—Plains? he'd been about to ask, but that can't be what Astarion meant. And yet there's no other understanding of it that Fenris can find— certainly not one that would cause so much shock. It's almost unnerving, and all the more so because he cannot understand it. Traversing through the Fade, perhaps, could be called a plane of existence, but he's never heard of one being used like a traveling door, and certainly not leaving such a scarring mark behind.
But one thought leads to another— who hasn't heard of the Fade?— and yet the conclusion Fenris draws isn't one that exists in reality. There are no other worlds, save perhaps for wherever the Maker resides— another time, then? But that seems just as fantastical, more the stuff of one of Varric's tales than anything in reality.]
What do you mean?
[He cocks his head, a little tense despite himself, for it unnerves him not to understand.]
[Baldurs Gate— he could start with. Almost does, a kind of start-stop hang across his tongue that doesn't fear what he can't feel tugging at him anymore (or rather: he does— always will— but not right now), not in this specific context, when logic's gone so far away from the firelight beside them that it circles right back around to being utterly, insanely trustworthy.
He doesn't want to bind himself to that.
If he's gone out into the wilderness or across the Realms themselves, choice swears he can try on something else for a change.]
Toril. [Astarion settles on, figuring the world itself will suffice for a clear marker when it comes to just how much they're both potentially at odds. At a loss.]
[And it's the certainty in Astarion's voice that unnerves him above all else. He isn't wary in the sense of feeling as though he's about to leap for his blade— but wary, maybe, in the sense that something is wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle; despite the summer air, a chill ripples through him.]
I have never heard of such a place— not now, nor in the past.
[He— doesn't laugh. It's more air than that. More dazed. Something like a bark of disbelief, and at this point it's— gods.]
Because unless this is the maddest attempt at luring me back to my old master in ways that make utterly no sense by any standards ever to exist— or you're more insane than a blighted Bhaalspawn, which I won't rule out just yet given what you risked on my own supposed account knowing I've nothing on me— this isn't my world, darling.
I've never heard of Corypheus. He's no threat to the world by our estimation, apparently. [Turning over the rag, he eyes the slick shine of his blood.] Mine, that is.
But if he can do this....drawing others through all the realms of demons in order to bring them here.
What can he say? All the things that spring to mind are disbelieving and inane both— for though that's impossible feels like the most rational response, what use would there be in this man making this up? He was so helplessly bewildered in those first few moments, tender prey for demons any Theodosian knows to flee; he stood at the edge of the fire for so long, terrified to the point of trembling tension, a shivering dog struggling to decide if a mouthful of meat was worth risking another beating.
And he came from the Fade. That sickly green mark on his palm— Fenris still doesn't understand what it means, but perhaps it's a marker. A vulgar scar born of wandering between worlds, and gods, who knows how the Fade truly works? The rifts that now shimmer regularly upon hillsides and fields are a doorway for demons to invade; is it truly such a leap in logic to assume they connect to—
Ah. But there's the snag.
Another world, and the concept is so strange as to baffle. Another world? Another time is almost more easily understood, for he has seen past and present play out in his brief forays. And yet . . . assume it's possible. Assume there are other worlds out there, other— other places, other countries . . .]
Assuredly he should.
[He says it absently. In the next moment his eyes flick up, crimson meeting emerald.]
I believe you.
[His hand flicks up, upturned palm hushing any incredulous scoffing that might occur.]
I do not understand it. Not fully. I have never heard of other worlds, and I would hear more of what you mean. [Maybe it is another time, some nagging part of Fenris whispers. Some elf stumbling out from Elvhenan, his ancient empire long crushed to dust beneath Tevinter's heel. Somehow, that's so much easier to understand— but then again, he speaks so modernly . . .]
But it seems equally impossible that you have not heard of Corypheus. Nor that you do not know what the Fade is. And though I will not say I trust you . . . it seems pointless for you to lie. Especially to me.
[So. So now what? He doubts this little organization in Kirkwall has any answers waiting for him, but curiosity (and anxiety) shared is curiosity halved— and perhaps Astarion is not the only one with such a mark.]
[After a pause, his long ears twitch; wide, red eyes relaxing as he breaks into a slanted grin, cloth still damp against his palm.]
Ahah.
Touché.
[Two liars walk into a bar. They only tell the truth— because despite no one believing them for a second, they only ever told the truth to begin with.]
Though I'd only be repeating tonight's theme of stating the obvious for confessing I make a poor threat to you in my present state, and pitiably poorer company besides, given that my own particular breed of insanity is less drug-bound decadence and more beaten-one-too-many-times-to-keep-my-memories-straight.
[He doesn't look up when he says it. If the creature across from him isn't wicked in some way, well— that makes him just too bright to look at. A little like squinting into the sun.]
I really don't remember what happened before I awoke right where you found me. And as for my home? It's a palace in the sprawling city of Baldur's Gate— which, knowing just how little that conjures up any sort of image worth having— is a port city so grand and christened by the sea that it makes entire territories look like dull little cesspits in comparison.
[He believes him— which is very different than believing, or even fully understanding, this story. And he struggles with the two as Astarion speaks. There's no lie in the other elf's voice (which isn't to say Fenris cannot be fooled, but again: what a stupid lie this would be). And there's no doubting the blazing mark on his hand, nor the fact the Fade contorts time and space in ways that Fenris knows he has no hope of ever truly understanding. So it's not that he thinks the other man is lying; it's not even that he thinks that he's delusional. It's just . . .
Another world. Baldur's Gate, a port city so grand that it has palaces, plural, and sports such a large area that it's nearly a country all its own . . . of course Fenris thinks of Minrathous. A glittering bauble that exists only because of the slave labor it ruthlessly exploits, but doesn't it look pretty as it does? Anyone who's Tevene wants to live in Minrathous, Fenris had been told once. Anyone who's anyone knows what a beautiful place it is.
And how strange, to think some version of it exists in another world. Except it's not a version of it; it's a city with its own separate history. An entirely different background, filled with entirely different customs and ways of being . . . Maker, it's almost too baffling to think about in any detail, and so Fenris soon stops trying.
Better to focus on the smaller picture. On Astarion himself, and the facts he offers.]
Because you were so insignificant to your master . . . or so important?
[For it must be one extreme or the other. Either Astarion was some cog in a larger machine, there only to provide mindless labor until he died . . . or he was so precious as to never be allowed to stray too far, a dog on a gilded leash.]
I was a bodyguard, once. He did not let me roam— though by nature of my duties, I left his estates whenever he did.
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Even Astarion's whip-quick senses can't keep time well enough to track it. He was— gods, his head hurts. His hand is worse, pinned under him and threatening to split itself in half from jagged pain too unfamiliar to make sense to a set of nerves already at their limit. And his first thought is— Cazador. Cazador, because it has to be. No one else brings his world screaming to its knees like this but him. No one else would've torn him from the nightmare of oily wet eyes and squirming tentacles behind a film of keratinous glass just to make a point. No one else would've come for him.
And no one else would make him pay.
Only it isn't.
It isn't....?
His fist (next) blink is stuttering. It aches against the smear of ruddy crimson blotting along the dull edge of his vision, but with it, he sees a sickly blaze of burn-bright green swimming hotly overhead: tearing the landscape— or the sky— right along its middle. Dividing it in the way a portal ought to, but there's nothing here worth recognizing: that arcane outline smells as wrong as it looks. And— ]
—oh, hells.
[What are those things? What are those things? The abhorrent roiling masses lurching just nearby— one of them seeming to notice (he can't tell, it has too few or too many eyes but) enough of a rotted face to make its twist in his direction feel about as deliberate as his own breathless gawking back.
His own—
Fuck— wait— oh, fuck—
(Another flicker of movement. Another glimpse of garnered attention now that he's not painting the image of something dead, most like, no matter how stock-still he's gone on pure reflex alone. Forgetting air again. Forgetting sight. Forgetting pain. The soft twitch of his uninjured hand trying desperately to crawl down slow towards his hip despite the tremor that upsets its path.
The counterweight that is his mind only catching up a full second later when it finally urges: dagger.)
Dagger dagger dagger dagger dagger dagger, Astarion— quickly— ]
no subject
He'd thought at first it was because he was near Tevinter's border. Foolish in retrospect, given all he's heard and knows about the incident with the Inquisitor and Corypheus, but still: he'd thought it was due to all the magic in the air. And yet the further south he'd gone— slicing and hacking his way through Nevarra and the countless hoards of demons and Abominations populating it— the worse it had gotten. To the point where he's learned now how to feel one in the distance based on how badly his lyrium aches (for all the good that does him); to the point where he's actually lost track of how many times he's had to save some wandering caravan or displaced would-be slaves from demons attacking.
He shouldn't be surprised that approaching Kirkwall means that yet another's opened. The Veil is thin here, the land cursed and soaked with the blood of thousands upon thousands of slaves; of course a series of rifts would show up. And yet still Fenris groans softly under his breath as he feels the pressure drop and watches the air ripple, green light sparking and flaring under a darkened sky. He readies his sword, waiting for the inevitable lurching groan of a sloth demon or the roar of rage from a firey spirit— and indeed, he hears both calling as the Fade opens herself, but—
Something else pops out too.
White hair. Pointed ears. An elf, and Fenris has no time to wonder where or how or why, for he's a helpless thing. Sprawled there as if the demons might not sense him if he's still, eyes wide with terror as he stares at the lurching figures crawling towards him— and whether or not he's reaching for a weapon is irrelevant, for he isn't fast enough. Four demons lope towards him, eager in their need to feed and tear and consume. More lurk just beneath the rift's edge, a pride demon's groans eerie filling the air as it tries futilely to emerge.
Fenris rushes forward, sword in hands, a battle cry cutting through the demons' seething whispers as he puts himself between the spirits and their prey.
What choice does he have? He could no more leave this elf to his fate than he could fly, for it isn't in his nature. There's little spared for the figure now behind him, not beyond making sure he stays put. The demons rush forward, changing their target to the most attention-grabbing thing in the area. With a flash of his blade he cuts one down; spinning swiftly he vivisects another, splitting it in half with a sickly squelch. His lyrium flares, all of him suddenly a hazy azure; he reaches into the third demon, gauntlets rematerializing just to slice through flesh and blood and muscle. But the fourth— oh, the fourth is cleverer than the rest, and as its fellows fall one after another, it targets easier prey: claws outstretched towards the pale elf, its maw opened and salivating for the thought of feasting on real flesh.
Too late Fenris turns, seeing his mistake; with a cry he dashes forward, sword swinging desperately as he tries to slice at it from behind, but he's too far, he's too slow, it's not enough, not enough—]
On your feet— get back!
[A roar of a command, and his feet aren't fast enough, his sword's blade swinging uselessly through the air.]
no subject
Palms to the earth and scrabbling in the uphaul to his knees, his feet. The segue of slight seconds that barely tears his heel away from wet-slick jaws that sought to close down on it— reverberating echoes of empty air over empty air: one good miss deserves another.]
Shit—
[It isn't Cazador.
He almost wishes it was. There's predictability in that. Not the smallness he feels hunched down low under a ruined sky, or lurching back onto his feels in preparation just to run while that crude thing wheels back onto its prior would-be assailant in a panicking correction: snapping, snarling, surging, growling through its ruined excuse for a throat with a hunger that suits more a mindless thing than the intelligence it bears in plucking out its targets.
Red eyes snap towards the side.
What he sees: cliffs. Fields. Rocky hillsides and the slope of ruins not so far. A break in the overheated fray where he could bolt into a sprint and put all of this behind him. And you know, fool thing that he (is)n't, he's considering it. He's considering it.
One more look cast that glittering outline's way. The silent, stricken weighing of ability against threat. His right eye stings. It's barely open. His arm is as raw as flayed skin to the bone, and hotter still. He's dizzy. He's breathless. He should run.
He's considering it.]
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Far, far away. So far that these demons can't turn on him; far enough that he can make it somewhere populated, where there are more targets for a demon to choose from and he can safely call upon more than just some stray elf to defend him. Frankly, he ought to run anywhere that isn't near this rift, anywhere that isn't here, where the stench of dead demon fills the air and the endless shifting of the veil glitters against the skyline.
But some quiet part of Fenris is grateful that he hasn't yet.
It's foolish. He knows it as he rushes forward and his blade finally connects, the beast's head neatly severed from its shoulders (if demons can even be said to have such normal features). It's an instinct born of loneliness, that emotion already exacerbated by his proximity to Kirkwall. This elf means nothing to him and vice-versa; there's no point in getting attached, for people only ever leave you. He's learned that by now. Besides: this man is likely sticking around only out of terror, Fenris realizes. He's probably wondering if Fenris himself is a demon, wraith-like as he is. It's happened before.
So as he feels the Fade ebb a tiny bit (temporary, surely, for these things always come in waves), Fenris lets his lyrium fade. What was a wraith swiftly becomes an elf, tall and proud. He holds his sword in one hand; the other he holds out palm-upwards, a peaceful gesture.]
Are you hurt?
We have a little time before they return.
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Terror is right.
And simultaneously immensely wrong.
Blood spills. A blade drops low into the thick of it as hadal ripples of pure silver-blue ebb back under marked skin. Feathered armor. Alien and— Hells' wretched Teeth, perhaps it is all shock and animal instinct leading Astarion by the bloodied nose— because the very next laid thought throughout that healthy sense of lurching dread is: beautiful. Remarkable. Magnificent the way only dislocated reality ever could be at its heart: that purely primal difference between awestruck and afraid defined by stories about the gods appearing in mortal guises never made much sense to him before.
Now, he doesn't know what to think. How to think, no less. The sky's still splintering about the shoulders of an elf whose gore-slicked stature conceptually rises tall enough to meet it in that moment, contrasted with the fact that Astarion's more on his heels than standing (or bracing) in an offset slouch, blunt nails dug into the dirt. Ears pinned back flat. Eyes wide.
(There's got to be a joke somewhere in all this mess about how he can't stop himself grasping for the very first offered palm that moves to save him at his worst. And if there is, maybe he'll at least get to laugh about it later when he pays for it in blood, giving past another swing at proving prologue in the margins.)
For now, he shifts his weight. Tentative. The careful consideration of keeping his dagger in his good hand while the one that aches and seethes is lifted, carved right through by a shard of avid green. (Oh, that's not good.)]
I—
[What are you, he thinks in the half-beat before his fingertips touch gauntleted metal. What are you.
Before something in that foreign magic rolls out like a shockwave, and the agony that jettisons from it up his arm throws him down onto his knees.]
—agh!!
Fuck— fuck—
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It's a bewildering blur of sensations: the shock of seeing just a flash of eerie green seared over the man's palm even as he cries out in pain; the sympathetic shock of his own lyrium flaring in magical repulsion, searing heat rippling up his arm (painful, yes, but no worse than usual, no worse than it always is whenever he gets to close to raw lyrium or a spell's effects). Is the elf a mage? But what mage— especially one grown— reacts like that to his lyrium? It's always the opposite: they linger near him, for he acts as battery, not repellent. And for that matter, what mage has that mark on their hand? He's heard tales of the Herald of Andraste, but that's the farthest thing from his mind—
But there's no time to think. Not a mage, he thinks vaguely, for it makes the most sense— and that's all the permission he needs to allow himself to kneel down.]
What is it?
[Make no mistake: he is wary. He doesn't know what's happening or what that marking means; he doesn't even know what it is, really, save that he'd be a fool to discount its connection to the rippling Fade behind them.
But he's so clearly terrified. He'd reached out so tentatively, acting like a wounded dog whimpering as it faced down an outstretched hand, terrified that it might turn to beat him in a split-second. And Fenris knows that fear, oh yes. He's seen it a thousand times on the slave caravans; it's been over a decade, but he can still recall the feeling. Whoever this man is, whatever just happened, Fenris does not think him a threat. Not willingly.]
Your hand . . . is that something that was not there before? Some mark from the Fade . . . did you touch it?
[Perhaps he inadvertently touched it. Fenris hesitates, and then, gently:]
Show me.
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Not a lot of things, in fact, though they'll have time to go over all that later (or: they won't, and they'll die here, or: Astarion will die here, and whatever— whoever— this is will go on just like everyone else he's met outside cold halls. Vacant rooms. The way of the world).
Overturned.
Flickers of crimson through black. Low lashes and the constant up-tick of his stare, checking again— and again— and again— as he moves to roll back the thick of his own sleeve over a dirt-encrusted forearm (charming). Palm upturned to show that livid green divide run hot right through his skin: glassy in the light and yet that much angrier with more overstimulated magic than something so small should ever house. Throbbing. Hating. Spitting.
Bristling with all the avidity of an animal— albeit not directly to that lyrium.]
I've no idea. [Is gritted. Comes thick through the corners of his fangs while he pants loosely just to empty out the urge to— what. Sink lower? Bite? Snap like that magic in his fist? Run?]
I've never seen this before in my—
[Well.]
I've never seen this before now. I swear.
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[He says it almost absently, his focus on the mark. At his side, his fingers curl as he fights the urge to touch. There's no doubt about it: it looks like a mark of the Fade. And though Fenris has never met the Inquisitor, he doesn't need to have seen their markings himself to know the similarity.
(He notices those nails, too. Thicker and sharper than an elf's ever usually grows; in truth, they remind him more of qunari nails than anything. And those fangs peeking out, those crimson eyes that glitter in the darkness . . . but the elf doesn't look half-Qunari, not beyond those features. A mystery that does not yet need to solved, but he notes those traits all the same).
His eyes flick up, and he adds:]
Where did you—
[But behind him, the Veil has decided it's waited long enough. Power surges through the air, eerie crackling leaving his teeth and his lyrium both buzzing; with a grunt, Fenris rises to his feet.]
There will be time for questions later. Come, if you wish— or run if you don't. But it will not be long before another wave comes, and I cannot fight them forever. And given I have no means to close these things . . .
[He glances at Astarion's hand again— but if the elf is half as bewildered as Fenris feels, he doesn't either.]
Make your choice swiftly.
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Another splitting shock courses through him in syncopation. Microcosmic echoes of the surging pressure overhead— shattering the illusion of misaligned existence: for as long as it takes for pain to blow out all his senses, they're nothing more than two elves caught in the midline of a maelstrom.
And in that sense?
Yes, he's grasping at something less concrete than straw.
(And yet, it's the simplest choice in the world. The only choice. The obvious choice, animal and blaring in the vertigo-sick hollow of his skull:)]
I can't— [It's an explanation, not a refusal. That's the intonation cut short when his jaw bites down across itself and he shudders in a wince.
Forget it. Forget explanations. Forget details. Circle back towards his choice.] Lead the way and get me out of here—!
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He's camped a little less than a mile away, his things neatly arranged (and trapped, thank you very much, for petty thieves steal almost anything they can't nail down). A horse grazes idly nearby, unbothered by Fenris' return and uninterested in his newfound companion. It isn't cozy, exactly, and it's a camp geared far more towards practicality than comfort, but on the other hand, there's a fire that Fenris sets to building, and a soft place for his newfound companion to settle while he gets his bearings.
For his part, Fenris busies himself with the fire. It's for practicality's sake, yes, but for the sake of his companion. He still looks so bewildered, and while Fenris does want answers, well. He can give him a chance to catch his breath.
At last it's done, and Fenris sits back. Tugging a small bag out of his belongings, he picks a few strips of dried meat out of it and tosses it lightly to the figure across the fire.
(Is he basing all this on how the Fog Warriors acted those first few days? Perhaps. Not consciously, but he does remember how deftly they threaded the needle between giving him space and offering him companionship, and how much that helped).]
My name is Fenris.
[He nods at the bag he just threw.]
There's food there, if you would like. And I have water.
Does it still hurt?
[The marking, he means.]
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[He doesn't look like a slaver. Doesn't smell like one. And Cazador's lackeys are either enthralled or as unscrupulous as it gets— neither of which seems to fit the bill for this strange elf (Fenris— he says, and it's only shy of Fenrir, which is— what? It's nothing. No marker for location or culture Astarion can track,) and his behavior: who in the lightforsaken Nine pushes himself over to tend to the fire when he's not making the questionable choice of drumming up another place for someone else to stay?
For Astarion to stay.
No one.
No one sane.
No one with a mind for common sense or the dangers that a sharp knife poses (but he'd dispatched those creatures well enough, hadn't he?)
All of it is maddening. Too much. Too overwhelming.
He stands by the edge of camp for far too long even when prompted, waiting for either the horse or its owner to turn ire his way while he bleeds from that cut across his right eye. His left palm and all the scrapes littering his skin. Annoying, but shallow— prompting a momentary closing off of everything. From his aching lid and clouded vision to the persona he projects: his arm still throbs like something broken; his nerves feel frayed; his throat dry; his head sharp and stinging all at once under the bone, and without that glaze of ruined green Astarion wonders how long he has to waste before daylight closes in just as eagerly as those wretches had been.
Moving to sit down feels like it would only bring it on all the quicker.
So he stands.]
Why are you doing this?
[Sucking in air through his teeth feels like pulling ice through his throat down into his chest.
He has to know.]
What's your angle?
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What a question. Not an unfounded one, not at all, and yet not one Fenris can easily answer. And yet he has to answer it well, for it might be the most important conversation they ever have. Wherever this elf came from (and watching as he stands rigid with terror, Fenris thinks— not wholly incorrectly, as it will turn out— that he has a good idea of where that might be), it was somewhere where the rules of survival were plain. Kill or be killed. Help someone and have that repaid with betrayal and grief. Survival of the fittest, where only you mattered, and there was no sense in anything so soft and weak as sentiment.
How could he not flinch from someone seemingly altruistic?
(Imekari, you're hurting my neck, Shokah had said to him crossly, her wrinkled face even more creased with annoyance, and it was so utterly disarming that he'd sat right down, bewildered right out of his fear).]
It is not my habit to watch someone die at the hands of demons if I can prevent that. I do not find pleasure in the pain of others— at least, not innocents— and those monstrosities are vile.
[He says it slowly, certain to not make a single move. Like with a spooked dog, stand right now and the other elf will go running.]
As for now . . .
[Hmm . . . but honesty is nearly always the best policy. That was how it was with Shirallas, wasn't it? He can almost feel the similarity. Both elves have the same rigid posture, the snarling defensiveness that covers up so much fear . . . or perhaps that's just how it is for elves in their world. Fenris tips his head, keeping the other elf in his sights.]
I do not have an angle. Nor do I expect anything in return— at least, not for tonight. Do not mistake altruism for charity; I will not carry you forever, and if you wish to stay by my side, you will work to earn your place. I am a bounty hunter, and my prey are the slavers who patrol these borders.
But I will not sell you. I will not rob you. And if you wish to leave right now, Kirkwall is some fifteen miles to the south— I will not stop you from leaving.
[Hmm. It doesn't quite feel enough, and so he adds, not unkindly:]
But if you wish for more reason than just that . . . there was a time when I was fleeing from my master, and I needed help. I was fortunate enough to receive it.
You look as though you are the same. And while I will not demand you tell me where you came from or what you're fleeing, anyone with eyes can see you're lost.
no subject
His senses dull.
His head is spinning.
His head is spinning.
His—
He has to blink through his unobstructed eye to focus up. And he's not swaying (he's learned after two centuries of torture), because his spine knows better than the rest of him to go rigid when he bleeds. It's his mind that always sabotages him.
Not his siblings. Not the servants. Not even the people he hunts down.
Just his mind.
He can't trust it, least of all now— but he swears he hears the vision perched before him say he was a slave once. Maybe that's delirium talking. Or— or a feedback loop, more like: a bounty hunter who tracks slavers would pick up bait at least, and if Astarion's deluded mind wants to drum up sympathy in hallucination by weaving up a story about a runaway turned mercenary, well, at least the first part makes some sense.
His next blink is feathering. He draws his arm across his face to wipe his sight lines clean, ignoring the bitter sting of sweat lodged in his wounds. Everything hurts, but without pretense crammed obtusely in the way, he thinks on the word master— and looks down at his palm.]
Lost is....[Dithering, that little exhale. Amused, though it's a wan grin he summons up.]
That about sums it up, doesn't it?
[Not just the assumption, no. Everything.
At a good distance away the slow nag hasn't startled yet; Astarion chances his luck by moving at least a few steps closer to the fire before measuring her focus and sitting down, hands across his knees. Shirt a tattered mess. His doublet— gods, he doesn't even know where he lost it.]
To answer your much earlier question without the entire world splitting above our heads: I don't know what magic this is— or how it worked its way in under my skin— any more than you do. One minute I was running errands for my master, and the next—
[Ah. Slithering in the dark. Desperation. Shrieking.
No:]
I woke up here. Like this.
no subject
And ah, there it is . . . but how odd, for it sounds as though the rift forcibly plucked him from Tevinter to here. He believes him, but it's still odd.]
Well, you are in the Free Marches now. And while I will not say slavers do not prey here, your chances as an escaped slave are far better than they once were.
[He's already tossed food his way, but now Fenris reaches into his pack, digging until he can find a spare bit of cloth. That he offers more gently, holding it out instead of throwing it like a damned savage.]
For the blood, [he says, waving a hand over his own eye to demonstrate.]
And if your master is anything like mine was, it will take him some time before he begins to mount the hunt in earnest.
As for the magic under your skin . . . I have heard of its ilk, but I do not know enough about it to offer you any kind of answer. But it is because of that I am heading towards Kirkwall. Those rifts have been opening up everywhere for the past two years, [and he says it because he remembers what it is to be a slave and not know anything beyond the borders of your master's estates.] I have heard of a gathering of people who might have those self-same markings located in Kirkwall— an offshoot of a greater organization dedicated to battling the forces that first began planting all these rifts everywhere. If such a rumor is true, they might be able to guide you.
[But that's so much information. So then, not unkindly, he adds:]
If none of that makes sense, I will not fault you. It can be . . . overwhelming, these first few days.
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(After all, why should it? Taking that proffered cloth affords one more long look at the glint of living green embedded deep within his skin, and all he can think of is that whatever this is or wherever he is, he—)]
Overwhelming was finding myself surrounded in so much agony I couldn't see straight. [Astarion dryly croaks back around a wince that sees him daubing at his face. The movements more than somewhat random; he's no idea where the blood across his skin is anymore, not that it matters much.
His best guess is: everywhere.]
So far, you make for better company.
[Another slow press at his face, before his uncovered eye lifts itself in observation.] I'll gift you bonus points if you tell me what you do you know about those rifts.
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Gift me your name instead, and I will consider it.
[But no, no, he'll pay his portion upfront.]
I know they act as doorways between here and the Fade— the realm of magic and demons. [For if this man doesn't even know Kirkwall and the Free Marches, oh, what a sheltered thing he must be. Some isolated slave who tended to a doddering old man out in the countryside, perhaps . . . but even then, he must know what magic is. He must have some idea of what life is, articulate as he is.]
And I know they are off-shoots of the initial Breach— the first, and largest, doorway that was deliberately opened by Corypheus, a monstrous magister from centuries ago who revived himself and now wages war on the world.
[Hmm.]
When you emerged . . . did you travel through the Fade itself? It would be a strange place. Unnervingly . . . [Mmph. He waves a hand.] Impermanent. Or were your injuries from before?
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[Is the gently-posed answer offered up once he finally takes his eyes off of the figure seated just before him. Trusting in everything that surrounds him despite the highest stakes imaginable still remaining deep in play, enough so that his fingers can at least go back to carving all the dirt and grit out of his scrapes, bit by irritated bit; he doesn't know why the sound of his own name feels like a knife at his own throat in those small seconds. The danger of something sharp perched at his skin, ready to punch through.
Some part of him determined to measure out all the odds stacked up against him, possibly.
Survival instincts.]
And unless I've developed amnesia [he chances, realizing that he very much might have, considering just how little he recalls in the lulls between grander beats of kidnapping and disaster and the sort of rescue that still has him reeling while he crawls back in towards lilting normalcy.] I can't say that I've ever heard of the Fade, either.
Not enough to tell you where it is, or whether or not I did, or—
[This time when he glances up, he squints. Head cocked sharply towards his shoulder (ignoring the way it reopens a fresher trickle of dark red. damn).]
2/2
Shit—
[Oh, his eyes are wide while he glances down again to gawk right at his palm, dropping the whole of his pale curls down across his shockrun expression, blaming sluggishness on injury and the sickness that's washed in from the cruelty of bloodlet starvation. How did he not realize it till now? How did he not catch on?
Corypheus, he's never heard that name. A war waged with the entire world? That implies— well it implies the entire bloody world now, doesn't it?? But if that'd been the case, he'd have known. He'd have been told. Learned of it— even in isolated captivity he was privy to the stories of Bhaalspawn and Szass Tam. Gossip traveled to the kennels; whispers were audible through walls. He drank it in.
He never drank this in.]
—I've gone through the Planes.
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[—Plains? he'd been about to ask, but that can't be what Astarion meant. And yet there's no other understanding of it that Fenris can find— certainly not one that would cause so much shock. It's almost unnerving, and all the more so because he cannot understand it. Traversing through the Fade, perhaps, could be called a plane of existence, but he's never heard of one being used like a traveling door, and certainly not leaving such a scarring mark behind.
But one thought leads to another— who hasn't heard of the Fade?— and yet the conclusion Fenris draws isn't one that exists in reality. There are no other worlds, save perhaps for wherever the Maker resides— another time, then? But that seems just as fantastical, more the stuff of one of Varric's tales than anything in reality.]
What do you mean?
[He cocks his head, a little tense despite himself, for it unnerves him not to understand.]
What Planes— where do you hail from?
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He doesn't want to bind himself to that.
If he's gone out into the wilderness or across the Realms themselves, choice swears he can try on something else for a change.]
Toril. [Astarion settles on, figuring the world itself will suffice for a clear marker when it comes to just how much they're both potentially at odds. At a loss.]
But that doesn't mean anything to you, does it?
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[And it's the certainty in Astarion's voice that unnerves him above all else. He isn't wary in the sense of feeling as though he's about to leap for his blade— but wary, maybe, in the sense that something is wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle; despite the summer air, a chill ripples through him.]
I have never heard of such a place— not now, nor in the past.
[And then, more plainly:]
Now: how did you know I hadn't?
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Because unless this is the maddest attempt at luring me back to my old master in ways that make utterly no sense by any standards ever to exist— or you're more insane than a blighted Bhaalspawn, which I won't rule out just yet given what you risked on my own supposed account knowing I've nothing on me— this isn't my world, darling.
I've never heard of Corypheus. He's no threat to the world by our estimation, apparently. [Turning over the rag, he eyes the slick shine of his blood.] Mine, that is.
But if he can do this....drawing others through all the realms of demons in order to bring them here.
Perhaps he should be.
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What can he say? All the things that spring to mind are disbelieving and inane both— for though that's impossible feels like the most rational response, what use would there be in this man making this up? He was so helplessly bewildered in those first few moments, tender prey for demons any Theodosian knows to flee; he stood at the edge of the fire for so long, terrified to the point of trembling tension, a shivering dog struggling to decide if a mouthful of meat was worth risking another beating.
And he came from the Fade. That sickly green mark on his palm— Fenris still doesn't understand what it means, but perhaps it's a marker. A vulgar scar born of wandering between worlds, and gods, who knows how the Fade truly works? The rifts that now shimmer regularly upon hillsides and fields are a doorway for demons to invade; is it truly such a leap in logic to assume they connect to—
Ah. But there's the snag.
Another world, and the concept is so strange as to baffle. Another world? Another time is almost more easily understood, for he has seen past and present play out in his brief forays. And yet . . . assume it's possible. Assume there are other worlds out there, other— other places, other countries . . .]
Assuredly he should.
[He says it absently. In the next moment his eyes flick up, crimson meeting emerald.]
I believe you.
[His hand flicks up, upturned palm hushing any incredulous scoffing that might occur.]
I do not understand it. Not fully. I have never heard of other worlds, and I would hear more of what you mean. [Maybe it is another time, some nagging part of Fenris whispers. Some elf stumbling out from Elvhenan, his ancient empire long crushed to dust beneath Tevinter's heel. Somehow, that's so much easier to understand— but then again, he speaks so modernly . . .]
But it seems equally impossible that you have not heard of Corypheus. Nor that you do not know what the Fade is. And though I will not say I trust you . . . it seems pointless for you to lie. Especially to me.
[So. So now what? He doubts this little organization in Kirkwall has any answers waiting for him, but curiosity (and anxiety) shared is curiosity halved— and perhaps Astarion is not the only one with such a mark.]
Tell me where you came from. In detail this time.
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[After a pause, his long ears twitch; wide, red eyes relaxing as he breaks into a slanted grin, cloth still damp against his palm.]
Ahah.
Touché.
[Two liars walk into a bar. They only tell the truth— because despite no one believing them for a second, they only ever told the truth to begin with.]
Though I'd only be repeating tonight's theme of stating the obvious for confessing I make a poor threat to you in my present state, and pitiably poorer company besides, given that my own particular breed of insanity is less drug-bound decadence and more beaten-one-too-many-times-to-keep-my-memories-straight.
[He doesn't look up when he says it. If the creature across from him isn't wicked in some way, well— that makes him just too bright to look at. A little like squinting into the sun.]
I really don't remember what happened before I awoke right where you found me. And as for my home? It's a palace in the sprawling city of Baldur's Gate— which, knowing just how little that conjures up any sort of image worth having— is a port city so grand and christened by the sea that it makes entire territories look like dull little cesspits in comparison.
Or so I've been told. I wouldn't know.
I've never been allowed to leave.
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Another world. Baldur's Gate, a port city so grand that it has palaces, plural, and sports such a large area that it's nearly a country all its own . . . of course Fenris thinks of Minrathous. A glittering bauble that exists only because of the slave labor it ruthlessly exploits, but doesn't it look pretty as it does? Anyone who's Tevene wants to live in Minrathous, Fenris had been told once. Anyone who's anyone knows what a beautiful place it is.
And how strange, to think some version of it exists in another world. Except it's not a version of it; it's a city with its own separate history. An entirely different background, filled with entirely different customs and ways of being . . . Maker, it's almost too baffling to think about in any detail, and so Fenris soon stops trying.
Better to focus on the smaller picture. On Astarion himself, and the facts he offers.]
Because you were so insignificant to your master . . . or so important?
[For it must be one extreme or the other. Either Astarion was some cog in a larger machine, there only to provide mindless labor until he died . . . or he was so precious as to never be allowed to stray too far, a dog on a gilded leash.]
I was a bodyguard, once. He did not let me roam— though by nature of my duties, I left his estates whenever he did.
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proof yesterday was a disaster bc I forgot it was actually my turn??? ??????????
IT WAS HARD OKAY
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