albinomilksnake | RP: OPEN POST

"No." he counters smoothly, softly, sounding uniquely contented as his footfalls slow with one glance high towards the tops of the canopy where they break. "The stars were never so bright in Baldur's Gate, but I know them just as well like this."

One hand lifts, the fingers of his opposite hand scrubbing idly at it while he mulls something over in silence.

"We should stop, though. For your sake. Just until morning."

"I'll will not see us robbed again, or worse," Fenris says, too tired to sneer it. "If we are not lost, where is the nearest inn?"

A function of being, as ever but now especially, the wrong kind of elf, Fenris' eyes gleam in darkness.

“There should be a village not far from here. The one we’d been aiming for before— but walking back towards the main road and actually getting there will still take some time.”

In fact, at this rate he doubts they’ll make it there till midnight. Maybe a little beforehand if they’re lucky with their pathing and footwork.

One silvered brow arches, his head canting slightly as he looks Fenris over. Yes, he’s still standing, and yes he has faith in him, but—

“You’re sure you’ll be all right with that?”

Fenris looks up from the antler and knife in hand. "Would you endure my nursemading you?"

"I'm just making sure you know how taxing this little trip of ours is going to be."

Said defensively because— yes, fine, it is nursemading, but like hell is he going to admit it and prove Fenris right when they're already in a tiff. Eyes lifting petulantly towards nothing at all, lips pursing as his hand meets his hip, and then he's veering off in an entirely different direction, likely angling for the road.

"And for the record, I hardly mind being fussed over by you, thank you very much."

"When it is on your terms," Fenris says, a bit (a bit more than a bit) pointedly.

That was unworthy, but he won't retract it. Fenris starts again. "I have never told you of Seheron, an island of perpetual war. Smoke was the sky, and it seemed all the point of those forests was to burn. I was there to guard my master, and so I fought off anyone who would harm him, as he took blood from me. There was little food he thought to spare, and his apprentices made a game of it to stop me from resting. This..."

He gestures to this strange new world.

"It is a garden, Astarion. I am not pleased by all your actions, but I do not mind being lead through it."

“Sometimes I forget we don’t speak the same language.” He says it quietly as he stops, turning slightly on his heel to face where Fenris whittles away at that antler, knowing it’ll take longer. That it’ll cost them a little time and a little more effort. He likes to think Fenris won’t be too fussed about it.

“For two hundred years I was alone. And before that, I can hardly remember a thing— I don’t even recall what I looked like before— this.” said with a sweeping gesture of his own hand across his body, making an example of paleness and red eyes and teeth in the dark.

“I was supposed to break boundaries, not respect them you see, that’s all Cazador wanted whenever he let me off my leash. But you should know that I am trying, that I’ll learn it all soon enough, albeit with more than the occasional growing pain.”

It isn’t an apology, he doesn’t make those in earnest, after all. Those are nothing more than deflections, little shields for the continuation of his own bad behavior. This, whatever it is, is more honest. More willing.

“That said, you can’t expect me not to want something nicer for you than whatever it was you used to know. Doesn’t matter that you can handle it. You know that— I certainly do. But I’m not Danarius, and you’re damn well not bloody Cazador.

We can do better for ourselves, I think. Maybe.”

He's often wondered: why don't you use my strength? Why don't you use my power? Now he has his answer, far starker than he wanted it. What other purpose can he serve? What else can he contribute?

They can do better than themselves, and what is that, exactly? What nightmare future is he being thrust into now?

Rules generally evolve for the worse, not the better.

"Maybe," Fenris concedes, each word squeezed through grit teeth. "I will try as well. I- You cannot possibly think yourself Danarius. Never say that again."

Fenris keeps walking, having forgotten to concede.

That’s fine of course. He knows how it hurts, change.

And he’s asked for a lot of it lately. As much giving as he is getting, so to speak. But for all his callousness beyond the borders of his affection, he remains ever the optimist: this will be worth it. He’ll give Fenris so much more than a garden.

He’ll give him a damned paradise.

For now it starts on a smaller scale, however, a touch after midnight by way of a blearily conversation with an innkeep with only one room to spare, and only one bed at that.

Astarion makes it simple, asking for spare bedding and tucking it just against the wall nearest to the bed, along with what they already carry. Hardly dignified by Baldurian standards, but it’s within his own eyeline, meaning he won’t wake and worry, and it’s far enough aside that Fenris won’t feel pressed on— or fussed over.

“Well? How’d I do?” He asks brightly, setting his hands high on his hips as he surveys the scene.

Fenris, stuck with his own thoughts, has had enough time to cool. He nods, setting his things aside, and begins taking off his excess armor. "That you can manage rooms at inns like this still amazes me. When I was on the run, I slept in trees."

A pale compliment, and Fenris feels rather wan himself. He finds the excess bedding and all but collapses into it.

"I was a snarling wolf today, snapping at your heels," he says, looking up at Astarion. He is not kneeling. This vantage is just comfortingly familiar. "Can you forgive me?"

A snarling wolf. What a lovely image, he thinks, and appropriate enough as he buries his stare at the fringed edges of silver bangs where they give way to sharper features.

After a beat, he shrugs off his doublet— nothing else— and clambers up across the mattress to drape down over its edge, one hand drifting lazily to catch (gently) the underside of Fenris' chin with the back of two artfully flexed fingertips, just in the dip between bright markings.

"Well, I'd consider it, if there were anything to forgive in the slightest." Suave and simple, hardly the painted niceties he's capable of offering. "But looking back you were right."

Take note of this, Fenris. He's not likely to admit it again.

"Off with you now. Kitchen doesn't kick off till after dawn, and the more I stare at you, the less I want to sleep."

Fenris turns his head, pausing a moment to press his face gently into Astarion's wrist, feeling the utter lack of pulse. Little warmth, but warm enough for Fenris. He kisses it before he rises.

Gently, he places the remainder of the antler in that indolent hand. Fenris is no grand artist, but he has clearly done this before: the trinket is now in the rough shape of a wolf's head, ears back, eyeless and snarling.

"You asked for something of mine," Fenris says, paused awkwardly in the doorway, before fleeing to the kitchen.

It feels rough against the pads of his own soft fingers, only crisp where the knife Fenris had used to whittle away excess left tracking angles. Had he been doing that the whole time, even throughout their tensed back and forth?

Hells, he’s a soft heart beneath all that armor.

So much time spent protecting everyone else, and so little realizing he’s the one in need of it, too. Oh, not from Astarion. No, he’s already fallen quite stupidly head over heels for that strange wolf of a man– and there’s no coming back form that, he thinks. But from the rest of the world?

That’s quite a different story. Especially here.

He turns it over one last time before pressing it to his chest, shutting his eyes and letting the heaviness of sleep take him. For once, he’s actually looking forward to it.

Haven eaten as much food as he'll allow, Fenris returns with caution. Finding Astarion asleep is good, if disappointing. Finding his silly little gift clutched in Astarion's hand does fill Fenris with a quiet sort of warmth. What a lovely thing, to be wanted freely.

Fenris quietly puts a blanket over Astarion's shoulders before curling up to rest on the floor. Sleep finds him quickly, blessedly dreamless.

There’s no sense of urgency this time. Astarion wakes when he wakes, the sun already clawing its way through the lopsided shutters to their room, only having rolled about once or twice— so little compared to usual restlessness that he doesn’t even remember it. The trinket he has to dig for, already sunken somewhere between sheets from sleep, and when he finds it he wastes no time in tending to a host of immediate, menial tasks:

He gains his bearings from the upper view of the inn, which cuts down on their travel time to Yartar by two whole days; he pockets coin with deft fingers from innkeep and patrons alike before departure, meaning that once they set foot inside city walls, they’ve the money to spare immediately for a narrow little space that’s barely more than a den of an unfurnished apartment; he swaps out weathered bedding last, and within that chilled loft in Yartar, makes certain they’ll be comfortable enough at the start of new beginnings.

True new beginnings. None of this endless life-on-the-run business. The city smells of smoke and sweet promises, lantern tallow and animal in places—

“Unlike Baldur’s Gate,” Astarion explains without prompting, arms folded across the sill of their rickety loft’s only open window, “Yartar permits dogs within city limits. As well as cats, chickens— just about anything, as long as it’s well-kept.”

He feels refreshed. Bright. Eager. Alive with the promise of a successful journey and the reminder that there’s a glory to be found in sprawling cityscapes.

“Gods. Just look at it.”

Astarion watches the city; Fenris watches Astarion. He sees how Astarion comports himself, how he moves through the city, what he needs and wants from it. This is no Kirkwall; this is a proud spot on a trading route, not a bitterly tired port in a storm.

Fenris will aquatint himself with it better in the night, to see where its Lowtown and inevitably Darktown begin and end. He suspects they now reside in some part of its poorer quarters. He thinks of Hawke, taking ten years to carve a name for herself out of Kirkwall's swirling ash and flame. It will be quicker, here. He promises that not to himself, but Astarion, as he stares silently at the red band on his wrist.

"How will you hunt?" Fenris asks, practical as ever. "I meant what I said-- drink from who you like-- but a sudden rash of anemia will be... noticed."

Fenris watches Astarion, and Astarion doesn't notice in the slightest, all too certain when he lifts two arched fingertips to gesture towards a dusky skyline only beginning to fade into sunset. Quieting down in so many ways. “Do you see that broken tower? That, love, is precisely where the ship that stole me away from Cazador crashed— just before your world stole me away from it, too.”

“Funny.”

And now he’s back, despite everything.

“I meant what I said,” he counters, the fleeting sharpness in his tone far from upset. It’s all seriousness, rare a thing as that is in the scope of his habitual musings. If Fenris wants there to be lines, there can be lines: all he needs to do is ask. “but...I imagine all those pets and parakeets will make for terribly easy prey.

And if I need to top myself off? I’ll go for nobility. The miserable creatures are always fainting anyway, no one would even think twice.”

"I have no experience in this realm," he means that on multiple levels, most mostly in the art of being a blood thief. Vampire. Whatever they're calling it. "I can only ask... if something goes wrong, do not hide it from me."

And then, in tones just short of despairing, "and be careful."

It’s a smooth, serpentine turn that has him near enough for touch. Fingertips hooking in beneath the fine edges of Fenris’ breastplate, anchoring. Dogs barking in the distance. A beautiful cacophony.

“No secrets.” He promises, eyes shadowed just so by the relaxed curve of his brow. “Not anymore.”

In the weeks to come, he’ll need to remember that. Oblivious now, and sweeter for it.

“What will you do, hmm? Should I send you out with coin to spare, for all the bets you’ll no doubt lose?”

"I won't gamble," he huffs, the closest he gets to Astarion's proud and practiced pout.

"I plan to scope out the city, see where money can be made. This place is prosperous. There must be a business suited for... unusual creatures." Such as themselves.

Astarion does love it so, the sight of Fenris unsettled. Chuffing like an irritable old— wolf, hm.

The pad of one of his thumbs digs in against that snared metal, giving it a bothersome little tug for the sake of furthering the fun of frustration for just a few seconds longer. No harm meant, no cruelty, just a touch of gentle payback for the last few weeks. He hasn’t forgotten, after all.

“Just don’t forget, darling, High Elves have privileges here. We’re not dregs, nor fugitives— we are esteemed, and that includes you.”

Fenris frowns, at Astarion's words and his insistence on tugging. He sets a hand to Astarion's hip, letting the sharpness of his gauntlets be felt. Not enough to harm, not enough to break the skin, but enough.

"High Elves," Fenris repeats. "I never asked you what that entailed."

He shivers slightly at the press of those claws, taking the hint, yes— and relenting for it— but the vividness of his enjoyment at what equates to teeth across a nape is entirely noticeable.

And then he’s all business.

“There are lots of elves here, you’ll find.” His fingertips remain against the contours of Fenris’ armor, feather light. Conversation casual, and just the same in tone. “Sometimes it all comes down to which god you serve— like the drow— you’ll know them when you see them. If you ever see them, that is, rare as they are above ground. Grey skin, pale hair.”

Very alluring creatures. Or harrowing. Depends.

“Copper elves are...mm, a bit like your Dalish, I think. They guard the woods and forests and smell like grass— I kid, of course. Mostly. Some do. Strong people regardless. They’re not much for regality.”

Unmistakable most of the time by his own measure, even the ones that make their living amongst city streets with modern advancements in tow rather than leafy bows and worked leather.

“High elves are, as I imagine you’ve already gathered, the venerated little slice that remains: we put the Fae in Faerun— ”

We, he says. Certain that as much as he was considered a Thedosian elf, Fenris is quite the High Elf here.

“That’s a joke. But, oh, never mind. The point is we began supposedly as beloved children of wild magics, and once we ventured out into the greater worlds became quite popular for our gentility and grace. We’re favored, is what I mean, at least as long as you’re not wandering through a goblin camp or a gnoll hideaway.”

Fenris listens, not quite believing it. He only just remembers to detach his gantlets from the pale prickle of Astarion's skin. A world where elves are favored, what a strange and impossible idea. But the elves here are tall and long-lived, holding offices of power, if Astarion is to be believed.

And Fenris does believe him, though on occasions like this, it takes some effort.

"I think I'll have to see this for myself," he says. "What... what would one make of me? My... looks."

He doesn't mean the shape of his nose or the green of his eye, but the markings and the armor. He can change his armor. Gradually, he'd prefer to go at his own pace, but he knows he'll have to. Some things, however, cannot be changed.

“I don’t know how much you’re willing to, but I suggest embracing it. Say the markings are magic— which they are, yes? You could be a dignified bladesinger, they are champions of our people, and frequently tattooed besides.”

One hand moves high from the leafing indents in rigid metal, tucking a few strands of pale white hair behind Fenris’ ear, revealing the edge of those spotted markings atop his brow.

“Just...mind the monster hunters. Still. It’s a different sort of danger in the city than on the roads, and I have no doubt most everyone you meet will be more deferential than suspicious, but...” this is all new for Fenris, no matter how familiar. The reversed image of his own struggles in Thedas, he thinks.

“Well, the more distance between us and noble paragons of monster-slaying virtue, the better. Same goes for overly any inquisitive warlocks. They deal in demons and curiosity by trade. Two things we don’t need in our lives.”

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