illithidnapped

Of course Astarion is quick and sure in his handling of the cards. Ellis is unsurprised by the flutter of the deck through his fingers as he splits and shuffles and prepares himself for the game they're about to play.

For his part, Ellis works the cork free with a small pop. There are cups close at hand. Ellis fills one, and sets it across the table in silent acquiescence. There is a beat of—

Hesitation. Or consideration, a weighing up of options, calculating parameters.

Instead of setting down the bottle, Ellis hooks a second cup, and pours. It is only half a cup. He has not yet lifted it to drink. But he leaves it within reach before plugging the bottle.

"Do we stake anything on the outcome of our hands?" is maybe the most pertinent question. Ellis is certain Astarion takes such aspects of a game seriously.

“Not if there’s anything you want to keep.” Astarion breathes, the words something just short of a muted chuckle as the slide of cards skittering across the table forms their respective hands.

“Fenris and I often play for the simplicity of catching up. Honing our craft.”

In other words, he won’t demand Ellis bet anything as a beginner unless he’s entirely set on it.

A kindness, really.

"I've nothing you couldn't take yourself."

Hadn't Astarion made off with Ellis' purse the very first time they'd crossed paths? Ellis has no doubts cards will follow that pattern.

And Ellis, for all his faults, has never been much of a gambler.

"Try one game first. If there's another, I'll make it worth your time."

Because Ellis is not unaware of his own limits when it comes to company. There are more interesting people Astarion might spend his time with.

The laugh that comment prompts is— well. It’s Astarion, that’s all that needs to be said.

“You wouldn’t be saying that,” he starts, sorting through his own hand, “if you remembered that more than a few people wager their own clothing in their betting pools.”

But pleasant as the thought is, there’s still the matter of teaching to come first. So.

“Matching card values is the ideal here.” Between them sits a few laid out, upright cards in a spaced row. Astarion finds one that aligns with a card in his own hand, and lays it down so that it touches the other, making a sort of branching line. “The last thing you want is to be stuck at the end holding cards you can’t use.”

It is, essentially, a glorified version of go-fish meets solitaire.

"I remember," is quiet acknowledgement.

After all, Ellis was alive once. He was a different man before the Joining, wasn't he?

But he doesn't press the point. Instead, he scrutinizes the cards in his hand, fanning them out for inspection.

Here, a carefully laid card. Set down, and then Ellis' gaze lifts up to Astarion, eyebrows raising. Silent: Like this?

For a long beat Astarion says nothing in return. Only a telltale twitch at the edge of his mouth, pulling into the most muted of self-indulgent grins.

What an implication that is.

But he watches those cards meet the table, and with a little nod of his head to one side, hums a noise of affirmation. “Try to think ahead as much as possible.”

In all things.

“More than half of it will always be luck,” he says, fitting yet another card along that branch after drawing. Fleshing out what they’ve already begun. “But if you plan for what little you can control, the better off you’ll be when things get messy.”

His scoff is light. Almost amused.

“Well. Unless fate decides to screw you over completely— but I’d argue there’s no helping that.”

By all accounts, fate has never favored Ellis.

"No, usually not," Ellis agrees, with a minor reshuffling of cards before making his selection to set down onto the table. "But I am assuming you're a gracious winner."

Ha, ha.

"Are you content with what you have here?" is an abrupt shift. Ellis' hand is still aligning the card where he's placed it, neatening the web of suits they're building. "In Kirkwall?"

The scoff Astarion lets out is so sharp it might as well be capable of cutting glass. Fingers to the corner of a card, lips curled back to show teeth, it’s not exactly subtle, his contempt.

“Content?”

More than most. More than many will know, ever— what Astarion has here. There are elves in the alienage no doubt rotting by comparison, human beggars in the street with less than an empire of junk and jewels, stuffed away in an apartment small enough to be nothing short of claustrophobic.

But Astarion knew good wine, once, and the glory of gilded halls. Two hundred years in destitute agony might’ve eclipsed that life, but having been sent out into it every once in a while was enough to keep him from forgetting, the way he did everything else.

And when you’ve had caviar, cuts of offal hardly sate.

“Gods, no.” His played card meets the table with a snap. Somewhere off in the corner of the room, an expensive portrait of a hideous Ferelden lord watches them play from his golden frame, tarnished at the bottom edge.

“What’s there to be content with? My unsightly hovel that stinks of dust and all its rotted furniture, in a city so rife with the marks of its past that I can’t turn a corner without spotting a mural of writhing slaves or iron doors. The fact that I pay an exorbitant amount of money for what you’d get at less than half the cost, that I walk on the thinnest of ice in Hightown where I ought to be flourishing, or perhaps the fact that my own friend—”

He stops there, fingers still pinned against the back of that card, red eyes boring a hole into it.

It’s not quite a reset, given the fact that he still looks bitter as spilled acid, but his focus redirects enough for it to feel like a palpable shift.

“What’s got you so ponderous tonight? It’s not like you to care.”

But maybe that’s just the nature of card games. An excuse to talk.

"I do care," is a mild contradiction, no heat behind it.

Perhaps he should not. Perhaps this is some failing within himself, these attachments he's formed in spite of good sense.

Astarion, at least, will not be so concerned if Ellis does not return.

But that is all Ellis says for a moment, pausing as he examines Astarion's contribution to the array, the press of his fingers against the table. Ellis shuffles the cards in his hands.

"I have been here longer than I intended to be," Ellis says slowly. He is working his way around a clearer answer: he is leaving, and uncertain of his return. "I hadn't lived like this for many years before I came to Riftwatch."

“You’re saying it like it’s a goodbye.” He scoffs out dagger-sharp, irritated by assumed introspection. By the gravity of something like self-reflection, or reverie, or solitary sorrow— he’s had enough of people leaving.

I do care, Ellis says, and Astarion takes offense to that, too. Throws it aside in the confines of his own mind as he twists the cards in hand by nominal degrees.

Because the lie you refuse to entertain is a lie that won’t ever hurt you.

And then he pauses. Something in his brow gone taut. He knows more about this world than he lets on, and it strikes him there. Cold.

Edited 2022-01-11 00:50 (UTC)

Is it a good-bye?

Perhaps, in spite of his intentions. He intends to return, but what guarantee is there that circumstances will allow for it? He watches Astarion across the table, the way he's stopped, hands still.

"Deal the cards," Ellis prompts, before saying, "I've a matter to the north that needs my attention. It'll take me some time to complete."

By the new year, he'd promised. He'd return by the new year. But the world is unsettled. The Wardens are fractured. And Ellis doesn't know what it will be to walk among them again properly.

"Fine, darling."

Middling acquiescence, devoid of any real bite; somewhere beneath the surface as he tucks his attention back into the deck between his fingers, he is relieved to know this won't likely be a definitive end, given the ways of ephemeral things. Grey Wardens, to be exact.

"But you'd better come back."

Longer with Riftwatch than he'd intended to be or otherwise, this is where he belongs, now.

A flicker of a smile in answer.

Ellis has promised Tony, yes, but as the moment of departure draws close, he wonders what the odds are that he returns. Adrasteia's fears are all valid, whatever Ellis had said in answer. Yseult's concerns are not unfounded. And Tony is right; Ellis does not have the same drive towards self preservation that other men do.

No promises. But a nod, acknowledgement, before he asks, "Would you spare some space on your floor here, for the night?"

Astarion's own smile flexes thin, barely noticeable above the way he holds his cards just before his face, head tipped slightly downwards.

"You can pay me back for it when you return."

"If you leave me any coin after this," is a lighter remark on the way to some more sincere murmur of, "Thank you."

As always, Ellis expects to find some outer limit to Astarion's willingness to tolerate him. Wherever that boundary lies, it seems that it'll be some months now before Ellis locates it.

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put a bow on this y/n advise me