[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.
[Significant. Unimportant. In that hypothetical context it sounds so simple: was he important? Gods, no. Every exchange ever to happen inside those walls for centuries was a testament to just how worthless he truly was in the eyes of his master, replaceable by any sense. And yet—
Was he insignificant?
Apparently not, if his failed flight had anything to say about it. His first and only attempt at defiance being a short trip into a long, long punishment, where the principle of insult only holds so much weight when it comes to balanced scales.
Astarion's scoff is a bitter run. Thin.]
I'll have to ask him myself when he inevitably tries to drag me back. [Your guess is as good as mine seems to be the implication, which is, for the record, precisely what's running through Astarion's own head.
But it's a thematic thing by now.]
Did—
[It's a slow pause, a flash of red beneath black lashes and the cinching of his palm around that rag. No, that's not the question he wants to ask. Gesture aimed back at Fenris by the curled edge of his knuckles.
Start again.]
Because you were so insignificant to him, or so important?
[It's an interesting answer, but he knows better than to press just yet. But still: important, Fenris thinks to himself, for an insignificant slave knows far more firmly who the master's favorites are. Perhaps he had to vie for it; perhaps his master was particularly skilled in making him feel worthless and replaceable. But important, Fenris thinks, and puts the question to rest for the time being.
Instead: he watches the hesitance play out over the other elf's form. The darting flashes of crimson beneath black lashes; the way he draws breath and thinks better of it, fingers curling, his shoulders curled in on himself. And he wonders, vaguely, when the last time Astarion had been allowed to ask a question was.]
Important.
[Oh, yes. The word slips easily off his tongue, but there's a thread of bitter anger woven in those words. His years post-Kirkwall have not done his temper any favors, nor his bitterness.]
I was his dog. And I kept him safe for many years from assassinations, Qunari raids, petty theft, and all the other things a powerful magister has to field. I was not let off my leash for any reason, and I did not leave his estates unless he wished for protection.
There's no cowing when he exhales. No simpering sightlines in his posture. What he says is sharp and determined each time he deigns to say anything at all, cutting through the air like a knife, and equally as honed once it hits Astarion's own ears: either he was a long, long time away from his former Master, or he was so well cherished he never once learned fear.
Either way, like the rest of this, it feels unreal.]
'Was' is a very specific tense for such an important pet.
[Unlike Fenris, Astarion can't find it in himself to be direct in any line of questioning.
[Ah, but this part he minds less. There's no less anger, of course, and there never will be— but some of the bitterness seeps out of his tone, replaced by something far more satisfied. A twisted smirk flashes over Fenris' face, there and gone, as he deliberately meets Astarion's gaze.]
But was is the only tense he will ever use now. I ran from him a decade— more than a decade ago now, [he realizes abruptly.] And when he tired of my killing all his bounty hunters and slavers and came after me himself, I broke his neck and left his corpse to rot in the dump.
[And how bright it sounds. How heroic he makes himself seem, and it isn't that he's trying to puff himself up, understand. He isn't a gloryhound, seeking Astarion's awe nor his praise. But Fenris has dealt with so many runaways now; he's dealt with so many more who quake in terror at the thought of heading to Tevinter, certain that once they're taken, that's all there ever is.
So he does not say: I was so scared. He does not say: if my friends had sold me out, I would have buckled and broken, no matter how many years of freedom I had behind me. He does not mention how his stomach had curdled with humiliation and rage (the boy is rather talented, isn't he?); he makes it into a fairy tale, and maybe it's for his sake as much as Astarion's.
[Everything present reiterates that tale. In the shortest imaginable span already, he'd cut down monsters— correction: demons— the likes of which Astarion has never seen. Misshapen grotesqueness too gruesome for even Cazador's bloodstained palette, though at most by a thinner margin, unmasked.
The pale elf tallies that with everything he knows thus far, and soundly at the top of that list stands a resolute fact he can't deny: no matter where he's wound up, wracked with strain and his own blood and the oddity of needing air, Astarion isn't safe. Hasn't ever been safe. But the striking creature sat nearby, knowing all the right things to say and yet sparing nothing for strangeness, might be the closest thing to that unattainable sense of safety.
And certainly the most inviting aspect of it.
Astarion stares too long despite himself. At the lopsided grin still flecked red along its border. At the ease and pride of it, spelled out only in the bottom line: he's dead, I left his broken body in the street, what of it? I want that, Astarion thinks hungrily. His stomach suddenly feeling even more barren than before under the loose lines of his torn shirt.
When he finally edges nearer to sit down fully by the fire, he isn't wary anymore.]
[In the distance, Princess Horse snorts just once, her sole contribution to the thought of Astarion sitting down. He does smell unnerving, but she's a mare that's been through quite a few bloody battles; perhaps he oughtn't approach her, but she won't raise a fuss now that he's sitting properly.
Fenris' mouth twists up into another brief smile as Astarion's posture finally relaxes— but unlike before, it isn't an unpleasant thing. There's something comforting about the other elf letting down his guard and settling in fully, though even Fenris can't say if it's because of shared camaraderie or sheer loneliness . . . ah, but it doesn't matter. It's just nice to have someone else by the fire, even for a single night.
Especially someone who understands, even a little. It's a sickeningly sweet feeling to speak of this to another slave, he has long since learned.]
Arrogant, perhaps, is the best word to encompass him. Cruel and sadistic, sometimes thoughtlessly so— but more often than not, it was a calculated thing. He was a mage— a magister, if you have such things in your— your world. Not without talent, and with more than enough wealth to fund his endless forays into the realms of blood magic.
And such things were necessary, for above all else, he craved power. He longed to climb the endless echelons of the Tevinter empire, and he was successful . . . for a time.
[And now he's dead. And now he's dead, the sentence echoing over and over in Fenris' mind, cooling the customary rage that always comes with remembering Danarius. He's dead and so are all his kin, and I am the one who triumphed, and it never soothes quite like he wants it to, but it helps.
A beat, and then, with a horrible, sardonic sort of smile, he adds:]
[That Astarion's attention only briefly flickers towards the mare (mostly) minding her own business is a testament to rapt engrossment. Something so ingrained at the smallest sampling that not even Astarion's own fear can tear him off its back right now.]
Blood magic. [Is the sunken sound that leads in brittle disbelief.] Yes. That sounds familiar. [What a sick joke, that even entire realms away, masters are ever the same.
What a miracle that it's breakable.]
And this is the first time in two centuries I haven't been able to feel his control over me from it. Or— [His body blinks. He has to breathe. Swallow on occasion. Beneath his ribs his heartbeat is a colting upswing of nausea that won't subside the longer he looks down towards his fingertips and finds his nails, well. Nails. No talons. No sign of clipping, only the soft beds of thinner outlines.] anything of him at all.
[No, on second observation, his tongue catches the backs of his fangs— canines and front teeth still dagger-sharp when and where he presses down. What of his eyes, then? His reflection? His deathly aversion to sunlight or running water?
It's too much to hope for. The next jolt from his pulse makes him certain he'll be sick, and he has to suck in air through his nostrils over the hard clap of his fingertips across his mouth when he doubles over just to keep it a suspicion, rather than fact. When he glances back up, it's with a question on his lips.]
[Two centuries, and make no mistake: he marvels over the words. He does not question if he'd heard it right, not when he damn well knows he did. Two centuries, and yes, he knows that this elf came from another world, and so presumably the blood magic there can do things it might well be incapable of here, but . . . to stretch out a lifespan to such unnatural lengths? He doesn't doubt Astarion speaks truly, but gods, what a hell that would be. What a nightmare to spend so long in captivity.
No wonder he reels. No wonder he hunches over, looking as though he might vomit. No wonder his eyes are such a strange color, and distantly, understanding without comprehending at all, Fenris wonders what else this master of his turned him into. Something not quite elven and yet not quite not; something, perhaps, so uniquely different from anyone and everyone else in his world . . .
(No wonder Fenris' heart suddenly aches, every thundering beat echoing in awful, terrible empathy).]
Yes.
[Oh, yes, the answer swiftly offered and softly spoken. He lifts a hand, palm-up, offering it as a display: one thick line of lyrium splitting into five channels, each carefully vivisecting the center of his fingers.]
I was not born with lyrium in my veins. These markings are his legacy.
[Look. Look and see how similar we are, though our mutilations differ. And though he would not allow it with any other newcomer, oh, he will keep his hand displayed for as long as Astarion likes. He'll even let him touch it, if it comes to that. Take what you need from me.]
It took him decades of experimentation to discover the exact kind of blood magic necessary to make such a procedure not just survivable, but successful. And he never managed it beyond me.
It's a familiar score, isn't it? The gouged-in brand of someone else's vision for the full span of your existence— eclipsing it— more than just your body or your looks, it's the measure of everything you know, inescapable without further mutilation: like the attached chain grown into skin for being too damned tight, the mutt will always have its scars even if it tears the leash line loose.
Astarion's mouth goes thin. Even with one eye firmly closed, his expression is both utterly transparent and entirely unreadable. An itch crawling up his spine before he wonders if the tatters of his shirt—
No. No, he knows where the borders are. Nothing's visible.]
....lyrium?
[No lilt to his voice. No songbird cadence. He's angled in and the brightness of the firelight falls on pale features in just the right way to emphasize how blatantly he's let his own doggish defenses slip.]
[So lyrium isn't common across worlds. And why should it be? But then again: why shouldn't it be? He wonders vaguely how mages in Astarion's world power their mana, fuel their spells— and further than that, how the dwarven castes make their money, how they consolidate their power . . . it doesn't matter. Certainly he won't ask tonight, curious though he is.
No, Astarion is more important. The way he angles himself towards him, all bright eyes and trusting expression, matters so much more.]
An ore that fuels magic. It is the basis of most magic in this world.
[He wants to move. To help him clean himself off, maybe, or see to that swollen eye— and sooner or later, he will. But he's equally wary of scaring this elf off, no matter how invested he seems now— and and so all Fenris does is offer his hand a little further forward, letting Astarion peer as he likes.]
Rare, and astronomically expensive in the quantities I sport. But it gives me an edge like no one else in this world— and such an edge was incredibly useful when I served as bodyguard for a power-climbing magister.
[With a wry little smirk, he adds:]
It has its drawbacks. Ignoring all the chronic, endless pain and the question of what it has done to my lifespan, I also sometimes have trouble staying solid. Objects and people both can and will fly through me at times, especially if I'm not expecting it.
[A thought occurs to him, and he adds more seriously:]
The monster that is terrorizing this world— the one I warned you of before. He uses what is known as red lyrium, which looks exactly as it sounds. If you see jagged red rocks bursting out of the earth, do not touch them. Do not even go near them, alluring though they may seem. They corrupt and cause madness, from which I have never witnessed full recovery.
[In a rare show, Astarion listens. Completely. Earnestly. Without a single vivisected thought aside from his initial kneejerk fascination over the concept of being immaterial without choice. A part of— no, not the Weave, then, but something that must serve as it in this world. It bypasses the immediate talk (albeit not completely; anyone once-branded can tell you that there's no overlooking the wretchedness of its presence when it strolls into a conversation like it has and always will belong there), but the temptation to ask to see it unobstructed sits front and center right until the end.
A fortune. Anguish irreversible. Pain.
Astarion has a shock of fallow green bored into his skin like glass, and it aches worse than any splinter. Imagining that on a grander scale— tracing with his eyes the places where those markings vanish behind thick leather and plate and rough fur—
It must be torture, whether it was designed to be or not (and Astarion has his suspicions the man's master didn't damned well care which was true), inevitably making both true.
Gods, but he still wants to see it for himself. Like an overeager pup, he's tipped forwards just a little more, almost twitching— before the idea of a world-ending nightmare brings about its own sort of sobriety, and a worried glance towards his own arm.]
What of yours, then? [Another cast-off look. Another momentary pass.] If red lyrium corrupts, aren't you in danger? Is there any way to stop it?
I stay away from red lyrium, and in that way, my own stays uncorrupted.
[He thinks. He hopes. He has no real idea, frankly, and trust that such thoughts have been the source of so many nightmares. Fenris pushes that thought away; instead, he focuses himself more on the elf in front of him. There's such a desperate hunger in his face right now, lean and starved and needy. He listens to Fenris' tale without flinching nor growing uncomfortable with misplaced pity, watching him so earnestly that you might almost mistake it for a discomfiting interest . . .
If you did not know, perhaps, what it is to yearn for validation. To seek understanding through another's pain . . . and Fenris will not assume. But he wonders quietly, and that is enough.]
I . . . will not claim to know what it would do to the marking on your hand. Lyrium and the Fade go hand in hand, so to speak— it's why, I suspect, it stung so badly when I touched your marking. But I do not think you have quite so much to fear as I do. And either way: it is an easy substance to avoid, for it is obvious enough.
[And then, quietly, his eyes focused on that desperately hungry expression:]
If you stay with me beyond tonight, and choose to join me on the journey to Kirkwall . . . I will point out some as we pass, so you might know it and avoid it.
Don't you dare. [Could be the start of a mildly-formed joke if it weren't for the way sincere alertness throttles high throughout wan features: survival instincts front and center, stubborn in how avidly it all comes cutting in when Astarion would otherwise (no, should otherwise) be mindful of his bearing for that selfsame purpose.
He only has one lifeline out here. One.
And he can't afford to lose it.]
If the idea is stay far enough away from it as possible at all times or risk losing yourself for good, believe me, red equals bad is all the description I'll ever need. And that goes for you, too.
[But the quickness of his tone abruptly hits his ears with renewed realization; like clockwork, the rag's folded over in his fingers, busy now with stubbornly swiping away the flaking peels of ruddy dried blood from his arms. Not so near to apologetic as having clearly self-corrected.
He's not some beaten animal (not fully, anyway). He knows he doesn't need to grovel. But as is the case from all prior reasoning, he can't go treating the man like one of his self-destructive siblings, either. Explanations and charm. There's no other way about it.]
Doubly so if it's something that Corypheus is aiming to make use of. Too careful is not careful enough, trust me on that.
[Though the command earns a raised eyebrow, it's the sudden self-correction that catches Fenris' interest. It's good in that the other elf clearly knows he overstepped (although of all ways to overstep, an abundance of caution isn't so bad), but it's interesting, too. Interesting that he can overstep, frankly, if he's so fresh out of enslavement, and distantly, Fenris approves.]
I did not mean to go near it. But it juts out of the landscape regardless, and we will pass some sooner or later.
[Gentle: not a correction, but an explanation. A moment, and he adds:]
You will have more luck if you use water, you know. Dried blood is stubborn enough to get out as it is. And injuries rarely clot if you let them bleed freely.
[He inches closer, one hand held out expectantly: give it to me, and he won't pull nor assume, but the offer is there.]
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no subject
(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.
no subject
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?
1/2
[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).]
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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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Was he insignificant?
Apparently not, if his failed flight had anything to say about it. His first and only attempt at defiance being a short trip into a long, long punishment, where the principle of insult only holds so much weight when it comes to balanced scales.
Astarion's scoff is a bitter run. Thin.]
I'll have to ask him myself when he inevitably tries to drag me back. [Your guess is as good as mine seems to be the implication, which is, for the record, precisely what's running through Astarion's own head.
But it's a thematic thing by now.]
Did—
[It's a slow pause, a flash of red beneath black lashes and the cinching of his palm around that rag. No, that's not the question he wants to ask. Gesture aimed back at Fenris by the curled edge of his knuckles.
Start again.]
Because you were so insignificant to him, or so important?
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Instead: he watches the hesitance play out over the other elf's form. The darting flashes of crimson beneath black lashes; the way he draws breath and thinks better of it, fingers curling, his shoulders curled in on himself. And he wonders, vaguely, when the last time Astarion had been allowed to ask a question was.]
Important.
[Oh, yes. The word slips easily off his tongue, but there's a thread of bitter anger woven in those words. His years post-Kirkwall have not done his temper any favors, nor his bitterness.]
I was his dog. And I kept him safe for many years from assassinations, Qunari raids, petty theft, and all the other things a powerful magister has to field. I was not let off my leash for any reason, and I did not leave his estates unless he wished for protection.
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There's no cowing when he exhales. No simpering sightlines in his posture. What he says is sharp and determined each time he deigns to say anything at all, cutting through the air like a knife, and equally as honed once it hits Astarion's own ears: either he was a long, long time away from his former Master, or he was so well cherished he never once learned fear.
Either way, like the rest of this, it feels unreal.]
'Was' is a very specific tense for such an important pet.
[Unlike Fenris, Astarion can't find it in himself to be direct in any line of questioning.
Instinct still has him by the throat.]
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[Ah, but this part he minds less. There's no less anger, of course, and there never will be— but some of the bitterness seeps out of his tone, replaced by something far more satisfied. A twisted smirk flashes over Fenris' face, there and gone, as he deliberately meets Astarion's gaze.]
But was is the only tense he will ever use now. I ran from him a decade— more than a decade ago now, [he realizes abruptly.] And when he tired of my killing all his bounty hunters and slavers and came after me himself, I broke his neck and left his corpse to rot in the dump.
[And how bright it sounds. How heroic he makes himself seem, and it isn't that he's trying to puff himself up, understand. He isn't a gloryhound, seeking Astarion's awe nor his praise. But Fenris has dealt with so many runaways now; he's dealt with so many more who quake in terror at the thought of heading to Tevinter, certain that once they're taken, that's all there ever is.
So he does not say: I was so scared. He does not say: if my friends had sold me out, I would have buckled and broken, no matter how many years of freedom I had behind me. He does not mention how his stomach had curdled with humiliation and rage (the boy is rather talented, isn't he?); he makes it into a fairy tale, and maybe it's for his sake as much as Astarion's.
It's better to be admired than pitied.]
A pet no longer. Nor ever again.
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The pale elf tallies that with everything he knows thus far, and soundly at the top of that list stands a resolute fact he can't deny: no matter where he's wound up, wracked with strain and his own blood and the oddity of needing air, Astarion isn't safe. Hasn't ever been safe. But the striking creature sat nearby, knowing all the right things to say and yet sparing nothing for strangeness, might be the closest thing to that unattainable sense of safety.
And certainly the most inviting aspect of it.
Astarion stares too long despite himself. At the lopsided grin still flecked red along its border. At the ease and pride of it, spelled out only in the bottom line: he's dead, I left his broken body in the street, what of it? I want that, Astarion thinks hungrily. His stomach suddenly feeling even more barren than before under the loose lines of his torn shirt.
When he finally edges nearer to sit down fully by the fire, he isn't wary anymore.]
What sort of man was he?
[Now that he knows what sort of man Fenris is.]
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PrincessHorse snorts just once, her sole contribution to the thought of Astarion sitting down. He does smell unnerving, but she's a mare that's been through quite a few bloody battles; perhaps he oughtn't approach her, but she won't raise a fuss now that he's sitting properly.Fenris' mouth twists up into another brief smile as Astarion's posture finally relaxes— but unlike before, it isn't an unpleasant thing. There's something comforting about the other elf letting down his guard and settling in fully, though even Fenris can't say if it's because of shared camaraderie or sheer loneliness . . . ah, but it doesn't matter. It's just nice to have someone else by the fire, even for a single night.
Especially someone who understands, even a little. It's a sickeningly sweet feeling to speak of this to another slave, he has long since learned.]
Arrogant, perhaps, is the best word to encompass him. Cruel and sadistic, sometimes thoughtlessly so— but more often than not, it was a calculated thing. He was a mage— a magister, if you have such things in your— your world. Not without talent, and with more than enough wealth to fund his endless forays into the realms of blood magic.
And such things were necessary, for above all else, he craved power. He longed to climb the endless echelons of the Tevinter empire, and he was successful . . . for a time.
[And now he's dead. And now he's dead, the sentence echoing over and over in Fenris' mind, cooling the customary rage that always comes with remembering Danarius. He's dead and so are all his kin, and I am the one who triumphed, and it never soothes quite like he wants it to, but it helps.
A beat, and then, with a horrible, sardonic sort of smile, he adds:]
I was his greatest accomplishment.
[He cocks his head at Astarion and adds:]
Sound familiar?
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Blood magic. [Is the sunken sound that leads in brittle disbelief.] Yes. That sounds familiar. [What a sick joke, that even entire realms away, masters are ever the same.
What a miracle that it's breakable.]
And this is the first time in two centuries I haven't been able to feel his control over me from it. Or— [His body blinks. He has to breathe. Swallow on occasion. Beneath his ribs his heartbeat is a colting upswing of nausea that won't subside the longer he looks down towards his fingertips and finds his nails, well. Nails. No talons. No sign of clipping, only the soft beds of thinner outlines.] anything of him at all.
[No, on second observation, his tongue catches the backs of his fangs— canines and front teeth still dagger-sharp when and where he presses down. What of his eyes, then? His reflection? His deathly aversion to sunlight or running water?
It's too much to hope for. The next jolt from his pulse makes him certain he'll be sick, and he has to suck in air through his nostrils over the hard clap of his fingertips across his mouth when he doubles over just to keep it a suspicion, rather than fact. When he glances back up, it's with a question on his lips.]
Did he change you?
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No wonder he reels. No wonder he hunches over, looking as though he might vomit. No wonder his eyes are such a strange color, and distantly, understanding without comprehending at all, Fenris wonders what else this master of his turned him into. Something not quite elven and yet not quite not; something, perhaps, so uniquely different from anyone and everyone else in his world . . .
(No wonder Fenris' heart suddenly aches, every thundering beat echoing in awful, terrible empathy).]
Yes.
[Oh, yes, the answer swiftly offered and softly spoken. He lifts a hand, palm-up, offering it as a display: one thick line of lyrium splitting into five channels, each carefully vivisecting the center of his fingers.]
I was not born with lyrium in my veins. These markings are his legacy.
[Look. Look and see how similar we are, though our mutilations differ. And though he would not allow it with any other newcomer, oh, he will keep his hand displayed for as long as Astarion likes. He'll even let him touch it, if it comes to that. Take what you need from me.]
It took him decades of experimentation to discover the exact kind of blood magic necessary to make such a procedure not just survivable, but successful. And he never managed it beyond me.
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It's a familiar score, isn't it? The gouged-in brand of someone else's vision for the full span of your existence— eclipsing it— more than just your body or your looks, it's the measure of everything you know, inescapable without further mutilation: like the attached chain grown into skin for being too damned tight, the mutt will always have its scars even if it tears the leash line loose.
Astarion's mouth goes thin. Even with one eye firmly closed, his expression is both utterly transparent and entirely unreadable. An itch crawling up his spine before he wonders if the tatters of his shirt—
No. No, he knows where the borders are. Nothing's visible.]
....lyrium?
[No lilt to his voice. No songbird cadence. He's angled in and the brightness of the firelight falls on pale features in just the right way to emphasize how blatantly he's let his own doggish defenses slip.]
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No, Astarion is more important. The way he angles himself towards him, all bright eyes and trusting expression, matters so much more.]
An ore that fuels magic. It is the basis of most magic in this world.
[He wants to move. To help him clean himself off, maybe, or see to that swollen eye— and sooner or later, he will. But he's equally wary of scaring this elf off, no matter how invested he seems now— and and so all Fenris does is offer his hand a little further forward, letting Astarion peer as he likes.]
Rare, and astronomically expensive in the quantities I sport. But it gives me an edge like no one else in this world— and such an edge was incredibly useful when I served as bodyguard for a power-climbing magister.
[With a wry little smirk, he adds:]
It has its drawbacks. Ignoring all the chronic, endless pain and the question of what it has done to my lifespan, I also sometimes have trouble staying solid. Objects and people both can and will fly through me at times, especially if I'm not expecting it.
[A thought occurs to him, and he adds more seriously:]
The monster that is terrorizing this world— the one I warned you of before. He uses what is known as red lyrium, which looks exactly as it sounds. If you see jagged red rocks bursting out of the earth, do not touch them. Do not even go near them, alluring though they may seem. They corrupt and cause madness, from which I have never witnessed full recovery.
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A fortune. Anguish irreversible. Pain.
Astarion has a shock of fallow green bored into his skin like glass, and it aches worse than any splinter. Imagining that on a grander scale— tracing with his eyes the places where those markings vanish behind thick leather and plate and rough fur—
It must be torture, whether it was designed to be or not (and Astarion has his suspicions the man's master didn't damned well care which was true), inevitably making both true.
Gods, but he still wants to see it for himself. Like an overeager pup, he's tipped forwards just a little more, almost twitching— before the idea of a world-ending nightmare brings about its own sort of sobriety, and a worried glance towards his own arm.]
What of yours, then? [Another cast-off look. Another momentary pass.] If red lyrium corrupts, aren't you in danger? Is there any way to stop it?
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[He thinks. He hopes. He has no real idea, frankly, and trust that such thoughts have been the source of so many nightmares. Fenris pushes that thought away; instead, he focuses himself more on the elf in front of him. There's such a desperate hunger in his face right now, lean and starved and needy. He listens to Fenris' tale without flinching nor growing uncomfortable with misplaced pity, watching him so earnestly that you might almost mistake it for a discomfiting interest . . .
If you did not know, perhaps, what it is to yearn for validation. To seek understanding through another's pain . . . and Fenris will not assume. But he wonders quietly, and that is enough.]
I . . . will not claim to know what it would do to the marking on your hand. Lyrium and the Fade go hand in hand, so to speak— it's why, I suspect, it stung so badly when I touched your marking. But I do not think you have quite so much to fear as I do. And either way: it is an easy substance to avoid, for it is obvious enough.
[And then, quietly, his eyes focused on that desperately hungry expression:]
If you stay with me beyond tonight, and choose to join me on the journey to Kirkwall . . . I will point out some as we pass, so you might know it and avoid it.
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He only has one lifeline out here. One.
And he can't afford to lose it.]
If the idea is stay far enough away from it as possible at all times or risk losing yourself for good, believe me, red equals bad is all the description I'll ever need. And that goes for you, too.
[But the quickness of his tone abruptly hits his ears with renewed realization; like clockwork, the rag's folded over in his fingers, busy now with stubbornly swiping away the flaking peels of ruddy dried blood from his arms. Not so near to apologetic as having clearly self-corrected.
He's not some beaten animal (not fully, anyway). He knows he doesn't need to grovel. But as is the case from all prior reasoning, he can't go treating the man like one of his self-destructive siblings, either. Explanations and charm. There's no other way about it.]
Doubly so if it's something that Corypheus is aiming to make use of. Too careful is not careful enough, trust me on that.
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I did not mean to go near it. But it juts out of the landscape regardless, and we will pass some sooner or later.
[Gentle: not a correction, but an explanation. A moment, and he adds:]
You will have more luck if you use water, you know. Dried blood is stubborn enough to get out as it is. And injuries rarely clot if you let them bleed freely.
[He inches closer, one hand held out expectantly: give it to me, and he won't pull nor assume, but the offer is there.]
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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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