illithidnapped: (45)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-17 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
[Oof. Phrasing. Astarion's ensuing chuckle is almost rueful in its overt amusement. Doubly so at the rise of that ensuing mercy, pretty as it is.]

Darling boy, if you knew what my cooking was like, you'd spare yourself the torture.

[He's stripped himself of his torn shirt by the time they're both supplanted in their bedrolls, fiddling with its tattered holes in a survey of all damage sustained; the prelude to plotting necessary repairs once they've found their way to this nearby city of Fenris', and a needle and thread will no doubt lie in reach. And at least like this, with the way his body's facing, he doesn't need to fret over the notion of his scars being seen (worser still: some part of him, absent and small and lain unspoken in tame darkness, insists he wouldn't mind it if they were).

But even the daftest whore knows not to surrender all their secrets on the very first night.
]

Water isn't the only thing that poses a threat to those afflicted as I am through my former master's touch. For a vampire— [and gods, doesn't he feel the full weight of that word for just a few narrow seconds in confession, not waiting to see if it's recognizable as he continues on— ] even sunlight is lethal in its own right.

Were I to wait until it's risen, well....I might not rise again, so to speak.

[Another scoff, mild. Bleak. Amused.]

....and I don't want to be alone when that happens.
Edited 2024-07-18 00:09 (UTC)
illithidnapped: (A32)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-18 10:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[Something in him buckles to hear it. Under the weight of everything said. Unsaid. The silence and the empty bandwidth in between. The stillness that takes root in all his fingers too fixed and heavy for him to overcome, and so there, for a time, lit by the glow of his own palm and the pale sheen of those tattoos no more than a few feet away from where he sits, Astarion does what he always does when faced with the insurmountable: he concedes to it. Lets it rule him. Have him.

Only this time, it feels right.
]

Gradual. [ Proves a surprising level confession, casting him as something rife with capable indiffernce; he'd seen Cazador enact it once or twice as punishment. Never enough to kill his own unruly pets, but enough to make them think he might just on a whim, should they insist on clawing at the last thin walls of his charnel house patience.]

Worse comes to worst I was planning on crawling back inside my bedroll and rejecting crawling out until the sun sets— but I couldn't do that without alerting you. And I....didn't want to actually run off.

[What a waste that would've been. Or would be, he supposes, considering it's not too late.]
illithidnapped: (120)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-19 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
Even a simple cloak would do, provided it was thick enough to shade my skin completely. [Astarion adds narrowly before that singular segue carries them away from talk of forests into far uglier spaces. Filled with memories best not recanted in the dead of night— but they make do with what they have.

And for now, daylight seems the tallest order.
]

Mm. [What a sullen sound that is, oppressive as it turns his face towards his palms as if it were anchored to them. Only the recitation that comes after it proves easy, for he's mette it a hundred thousand times before:] I cannot enter homes uninvited, I cannot disobey, or control myself against any of his— that is to say my former master—'s wishes. I cannot dream, nor suffer running water, nor sunlight, nor the kiss of holy magic.

And, most of all, [or worst of all, depending on perspective] I can't sustain myself on anything that isn't blood.
illithidnapped: (125)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-20 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
[The repetition doesn't haunt, it possesses; at this rate it's going to take a near eternity to acclimate to the dead drop feel of weightlessness that's ingrained itself within his neophytic pulse each time he braces for the worst— for what should, by all rights, come attached to an admission as damning as this one— only to remain blissfully spared the sight of narrowed eyes or dawning horror.

What a terrifying thing, realizing you'd follow someone so devoutly without coercion or a second thought.

Exhilarating, too. Moreso than all the rest.
]

Not an untrue statement to be seen. [Offered through the sly tip of his clawed fingers as his own chin blithely lifts. What few of them perch broken barely detracting from the pale elf's practiced poise....and well afforded praise (for Fenris).] But I doubt he'd have chosen those exact conditions were it not a byproduct of the magic used to forever bind us to his side. Some, yes— not all.

That was the deal, you see. Bleeding at death's door in desperation, peripheral vision already a muddy swath, and in he'd swoop like a shining beacon of salvation in the night. There to save us from certain oblivion with no other hope in sight, sweet and mercifully noble. [And what a familiar tale that is.] It's the fine print that gets left out. The fact that we'll be no cherished thing once we surrender to his....alterations, but an eternal slave with no body of our own. No freedom even in our own minds, for all he'd need do was demand we speak, and sanguine compulsion gladly did the rest.

It was his curse that granted those of us too unlucky or stupid to fall victim to his offer those myriad weaknesses, along with fangs. Claws. Eyes that shine with the truth of what we are.

Another leash, to make certain we could never leave unless he bade it.

[Threaded, that narrow little pause.]

....you're the only soul I've ever met that doesn't seem to care what I've become. I don't know what to make of that.
illithidnapped: (30)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-21 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
[He listens. For so long, and so attentively, that he's sure no one who knew him would recognize him in those fleeting moments whilst his newfound fascination sits there speaking. Where even the fractured gaps between conscious and subconscious seem to echo as they hang on every word, repeating them again and again.

And then, at the end—

He laughs.
]

Be still my—

[ah] beating heart. [Hm. Such a novel thing to say, now that it's true (tugging on his tattered blouse comes with less fascination). Those gold-green eyes don't look away; neither do Astarion's. Couldn't help it if he tried.]

I suppose we'll need to take tally if we make it to that city of yours in one piece. With the winner spared paying for drinks for an entire night.
illithidnapped: (131)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-21 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
[Astarion's scoff is such a feathered thing; he doesn't grasp the depth of what presently churns behind an otherwise easy stare (how could he? So far as he knows, they're both rife with keen contentment. The first true thing in two lightless, all-encompassing lifetimes). Like something starved for sustenance, he leans in without looking back.]

Pshh. Details, details. Perhaps I'm simply confident in my ability to manifest coin from thin air?
illithidnapped: (A48)

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[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-22 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
You know, I don't think I ever understood the idea of expatriation outside simply dreaming of a world beyond my Master's reach. Apparently all I needed was the right potential home.

And the right company.

[Oh, how those garnet eyes glint above the green cast of his upturned palm, each syllable tigerine in ways that rise too easily behind now-fragile ribs.]

But what slave doesn't know how to silence their steps beyond shadow or the dead of night? Or feign sleep so as to go unnoticed? Sleight of hand— misdirection— flattery itself: the skills that once bore me through the depths of misery now afford a higher—

[Long ears twitch once, delayed.]
illithidnapped: (20)

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[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-22 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
Erm.

[Wait.]

What?

[Did you say fight?] ....As in fight fight?
illithidnapped: (123)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-22 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
[Astarion's dismissive noise is something both offended and— much more visibly— amused.]

Don't. Tempt. Me.

[Or else.]

But yes, I can defend myself if need be. I'm a fearsome predator, after all— [says the thing with a beating heart and trouble remembering to breathe, donned in silk and looking well and truly ragged in all neophytic rebirth:]

Why?
illithidnapped: (146)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-22 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[The claws won't last long; what few remain will find themselves trimmed before they pass the Gallows. Something to at least curb his own stark contrast to the rest of the city— the first of many changes.]

And yet I'll have you by my side. I'm certain that'll be more than enough to deter the worst inside those walls. Or outside them. Or both? [You've done enough of that already, seems to be the implication in his cadence as he finally snakes down underneath his sleeping cover.]
illithidnapped: (131)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-23 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
Anything is better than life in a kennel, my dear.

[Arranged like this, they look like children overgrown. A pair of cohorts plotting out more than just any immediate, reasonable timeline dictated by accidental meetings: I won't always be there not because he doesn't wish to be— but because he'll have his own necessities, his own duties— and truthfully the same could be said in reverse. That overcast as the sky above may be when unaffected by either green or silver glow, Astarion suddenly feels bolstered in his desire for new experience. The fresh, utterly vibrant bloom of freedom that doesn't seem inclined to choke him the second he breaks into a tentative run.

The sort of conversation he's snarled at his siblings over nearly a thousand times before.
]

Train me? [Has a distinctive curl; a cat tail swishing back and forth.

(Kinky)
]

My my. You will go easy on me, won't you? I'd hate to have to stitch you back together with care for having to unleash my full abilities without restraint.
illithidnapped: (A22)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-23 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[There's an audible —click— as Astarion's tongue pops against the roof of his mouth.]

—an excellent question. [Wears the same cadence as such hit phrases as: 'goodness, look at the time', and 'first thing tomorrow morning, was it?']

But um. Well it's just so hard to choose with hands so deft as mine.

And really, wouldn't you prefer the spontaneity of organic discovery? Sweat dripping from our brows and exhilaration running fierce and hot within our veins— neither one of us knowing what the other has in store?
illithidnapped: (take control)

[personal profile] illithidnapped 2024-07-23 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Rude.

[Grouses the cattish elfpire in the dark, ears pinned (briefly) back.]

Tsk. Why in the Realms would I bluff about a simple thing like that?

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