Not the Fenris that Astarion uses in shared company regardless of who that company happens to be, but the creature it protects with its existence (calling Fenris 'broody' or 'a lone wolf' wasn't an assessment as much as it was a challenge posed to one rightfully guarded nature— to raised hackles and crueler muscle memory— urging it to let itself go. To lay itself down. Less Fenris, more....this).
It reverberates back across the line in fractal patterns, a copy of a copy of a glimpse into the past, Astarion thinking of being shown what it was like to be so bitter and so welcomed. Astarion thinking of what it was like to be so bitter and so welcomed. And when Varric's warmth staring down the ire of an elf twice his height melts gently into Gale's patiently raised hands underneath one of Kirkwall's many (many) unmarked piers, attempting to befriend the enraged vampire before him with the words I know you, we were friends— it isn't some intentional tit for tat, or an obligatory, hemmed-in expression of show me yours and I'll show you mine— it isn't intentional at all, in fact.
Only the sober shiver of his own unobstructed thoughts while the Weave hums between their fingers.]
Well.
If you didn't murder your friends for daring to care for you in the utter thick of it, however abrasive and intruding that it was....
[Another twitch of a sincere smile, kept angled off towards the skyline— reeled back for its own punch line (that isn't a punchline; his kin would say he reeks of fear, but he doesn't feel it on the rooftop with them).]
....maybe I can avoid murdering mine this time around.
[(Another snap of memory seeps in, but it's— quick. Or small. Or shuttered. Something like the scent of ale seeps in, only nothing like the sort from open windows down below. A snapshot disconnect between past and present, gone as quickly as it came.
Astarion doesn't seem to notice. Or if he does, he doesn't show it.)]
Perhaps I ought to tell them the truth about you. Your age, for starters, if you're wiling.
[A thin, downwards exhale. An expansion on that smile.]
Maybe if they understood you better, or— if they understood what I am because of you, beyond the memories I can't recall— I might be less inclined to shut them out.
no subject
Not the Fenris that Astarion uses in shared company regardless of who that company happens to be, but the creature it protects with its existence (calling Fenris 'broody' or 'a lone wolf' wasn't an assessment as much as it was a challenge posed to one rightfully guarded nature— to raised hackles and crueler muscle memory— urging it to let itself go. To lay itself down. Less Fenris, more....this).
It reverberates back across the line in fractal patterns, a copy of a copy of a glimpse into the past, Astarion thinking of being shown what it was like to be so bitter and so welcomed. Astarion thinking of what it was like to be so bitter and so welcomed. And when Varric's warmth staring down the ire of an elf twice his height melts gently into Gale's patiently raised hands underneath one of Kirkwall's many (many) unmarked piers, attempting to befriend the enraged vampire before him with the words I know you, we were friends— it isn't some intentional tit for tat, or an obligatory, hemmed-in expression of show me yours and I'll show you mine— it isn't intentional at all, in fact.
Only the sober shiver of his own unobstructed thoughts while the Weave hums between their fingers.]
Well.
If you didn't murder your friends for daring to care for you in the utter thick of it, however abrasive and intruding that it was....
[Another twitch of a sincere smile, kept angled off towards the skyline— reeled back for its own punch line (that isn't a punchline; his kin would say he reeks of fear, but he doesn't feel it on the rooftop with them).]
....maybe I can avoid murdering mine this time around.
[(Another snap of memory seeps in, but it's— quick. Or small. Or shuttered. Something like the scent of ale seeps in, only nothing like the sort from open windows down below. A snapshot disconnect between past and present, gone as quickly as it came.
Astarion doesn't seem to notice. Or if he does, he doesn't show it.)]
Perhaps I ought to tell them the truth about you. Your age, for starters, if you're wiling.
[A thin, downwards exhale. An expansion on that smile.]
Maybe if they understood you better, or— if they understood what I am because of you, beyond the memories I can't recall— I might be less inclined to shut them out.