illithidnapped

It's not exactly a comfortable thing, given that they're still making the trek upstairs, but-- it's still something he sinks into a little bit more, over time on their ascent. Just a little.

"Hardly," he mutters in turn, with a little shake of his head. That is definitely not a risk. "I simply did not think you would be so taken by it."

“You’re an immortal ruler that’s seen the hypothetical better part of thirteen thousand years: much as I’d like to disparage you for fun, there’s not actually much there for me to pick on, you know.” It’s all remarkable in its own way. All fascinating. The sort of mystery that drew Astarion to begin with well over half a year ago.

The rest is, as they say, history.

“And besides, it’s part of my track record here, now. Keeping an Emperor under my wing.” His voice runs softer in the next beat. Wicked, even.

“And under my teeth.”

It brings to mind the first night they'd spent together, Astarion in his lap, fangs sunk into his shoulder-- the memory of that night as a whole sends a little shiver of something through him, unbidden, but he stifles it well. Elects to ignore that and set it aside.

"Is that how you picture it?" he asks in return, tone idle despite the way his voice lowers to match. "A bold claim, to keep someone like myself in any fashion."

"Isn't that what it takes, darling?"

Boldness. Ferocity. The sort of willingness to topple rather than yield, if afforded the chance to see a ruler made all the more pretty on his knees.

Astarion steals whatever's within his reach, after all. Determined at heart to give so very little back in turn.

"I suspect you'd grow desperately bored now, if I were to leave you behind."

The hallway ends with them hovering just beside Emet-Selch's locked doorway. Familiar enough to Astarion that he could find it by heart.

"Do you, now."

A soft hum, there, noncommittal. He's still leaning against Astarion as he unlocks the door and lets them both in, pushing it closed behind them.

Once that's done-- he still has just enough in him to nudge his companion up against it, teeth grazing his jawline, his throat, a hand splayed on his shoulder to brace himself. He doesn't have it in him to go too far, isn't trying to start anything as opposed to simply making a point, but:

"Do not act," he murmurs against skin, "as if I am the only one getting something out of this."

His back meets the door, neck arched high into that roaming attention, slender fingertips resting just against the center of that heavy coat and its gilded decorations, already beginning to fiddle with the clasps. Emet-Selch, injured and undoubtedly expecting this to only be about making a point, might be at odds with Astarion and his own relentless nature.

Tamed, the noise he makes on exhale. The way he smiles through his own jagged fangs, having already forgotten so much else.

"...well." He breathes, tipping his cheek to brush against the Ascian's own. "Maybe I have gotten a little attached to the idea of having you around to toy with as I like."

The impulse to shut him up with a kiss is there at that touch, he realizes, but it isn't one he acts upon. Another thing that he stifles and smothers, instead murmuring, "Do you expect that I shall always let you? Or must I return the favor to make myself clear?"

It wouldn't be hard, he's sure. Any indulgence given is something he chooses to allow, and he has certainly toyed with others before. Starting this in the first place might honestly count, considering the way that Astarion is and the condition Emet-Selch is in-- he doesn't pull away, though, nor push away his fingers from the clasps of that coat.

Edited 2021-12-21 09:01 (UTC)

Absurd, the overtures they're making still dressed fully in mock-costume. Revolting to most in Thedas, the imagery it paints. Something not even Tevinter itself would tolerate.

Astarion pants thinly as his tongue presses just against the back of his teeth, clearly unbothered by the veiled threat Emet-Selch makes.

...possibly even aroused by it, in fact, already working his own fingers underneath the edges of the overcoat, seeking out the far softer indulgence of pressing them to warm, soft skin. The center of Emet-Selch's chest, skirting light and slow.

"Do you think I haven't already imagined you might?"

Everything is transient, after all.

"So you have wanted to be subjugated by royalty, as well."

His tone remains low, idle amusement slipping in-- no breathlessness on his own end. Composed, even as he takes a moment to let his teeth graze Astarion's earlobe next, words soft against the shell.

"Were I uninjured, I may be inclined to spend the night doing precisely that. I do not dislike the thought of seeing you so. But, as it stands..."

A quiet sigh, there, before he shifts back and tugs Astarion away from the door with him. He doesn't have to separate, but Emet-Selch also can't stand here the whole night, thanks.

"We will both have to settle. I, for one, am already exhausted."

He thinks to clarify. To press that he’d meant he’s already imagined a thousand times over what their inevitable parting might be like.

After all, Emet-Selch is old, and not in the ways Astarion likes to tease over: he’s seen more, done more, no doubt exhausted the taste of finer things that even Astarion might never know. How long until he bores? How long until this world picks him off, or decides he’s unwanted, dismissing him like an undesired dream.

But that’s a mood killer if ever there was one.

And besides, the Ascian’s not exactly off the mark. Maybe there’s something to be said for how— contrary to the way Astarion would usually snarl at even the mock idea of subjugation— the reversal of Astarion's old claim doesn’t do anything but set an excited little rush slithering up along his spine.

So. Fine. Maybe a little bit.

Pity they can’t see it through tonight.

He sets a single, uniquely chaste kiss against the underside of Emet-Selch’s jaw, and then finishes unfastening the rest of his coat. Helpful, rather than wanton this time.

“I don’t know why it bothers you anyway, what I call you.” Even if it is delightfully entertaining to have watch the Emet-Selch’s expression twist right before his own eyes.

“I thought for sure that by now, names and titles would weigh as much in your palm as an ounce of dust.”

Edited 2021-12-23 22:34 (UTC)

Well, it isn't a no. He watches Astarion quietly, before he answers, and he isn't quite expecting him to shift off the subject so easily. For that kiss to be what it is, for him to redirect his focus as quickly as he does; it certainly isn't unwelcome, though, and he reaches up to brush a stray lock of hair from Astarion's face before he shrugs off his unfastened coat. Just a brief little gesture.

"They do," he says with a shrug, carefully pulling off his shirt. A little harder, with his injury, but he doesn't need help with it (or at least does not ask.)

With most, he wouldn't pay it any mind. With people he finds he gives at least something of a damn about, though-- he's beginning to think he would prefer not to be addressed as if he still lived his previous mortal life, one he's since abandoned.

But it isn't the time for that, and so instead there is simply: "You may do as you like. I merely wondered if it appealed to you more than I had known."

“No.” He confesses idly, tugging away that wig and its accompanying circlet at last, heavy a nuisance as it’s become.

“Just fun, mostly.”

From there, he makes his way to the heavy chair he so often favors, running his fingers through his own curls— though with how long they've been pressed down, it doesn't do all that much to unwind them, admittedly.

“Miserable as so many things are, I don’t really look for much else as a habit. Works out better for everyone.”

"And if such is your pursuit, I expect any opportunity ought to be taken, with the world as it is."

Otherwise, the next opportunity might not come so easily-- though it isn't something he really pursues himself. He's not sure he would call any of this fun, in his own words. Pleasurable, sure. Something he likes, appreciates, maybe enjoys.

He sheds his trousers, replaces it all by slipping on a more comfortable robe before he goes to sit on the bed. Sol wakes, at that, with a yawning meow before settling back in to sleep, and Emet-Selch idly pets behind his ears for a moment.

"Do you never think to look for aught else, then?"

The question, tame and transparent as it is, somehow seems to confuse Astarion where he sits just across the way: brow cinching tighter by the narrowest set of degrees. Chin drifting closer to his own shoulder.

"...else?"

Cautious, his response. Like he feels as though his description of what sits outside the term fun and Emet-Selch's have somehow missed each other by a mile. But maybe he's just imagining things.

Still, best to be sure:

"You mean, what? Deeper connections? Matters of the heart— that sort of thing."

"Not necessarily." A one-shouldered shrug accompanies that, as the cat shifts to curl up against one of his legs. "It need not be anything deep, exactly. More along the lines of-- what else you believe there is that is worth your while."

“You’re asking someone only seven months freed from two hundred years of servitude without so much as a single shred of free will throughout.”

He knows where danger lies. Risk and cost, everything he used to use— and still does at times— to hunt. He knows the sting of drawing close enough to be burned. Fresh and aching. Far from cowed by the mercy of others.

But beyond that....

“If I’m honest, I don’t know.”

He hums, quietly. Considers that for a few moments, before he finally says purposely neutral, "I suppose at times I still do not know, either."

After all, he is only roughly six months departed from a millenia-long duty, from the weight of his god's will. From long years spent among people he stood apart from.

"You can come here, by the by. I will move Sol if need be."

In his own way, he knows that statement's a manifestation of Emet-Selch's wants: the man never truly asks so much as alludes to— or observes with pointed, deliberately guiding commentary. In other words, if he's mentioning the possibility of moving, he undoubtedly wants Astarion close.

Closer than he's willing to admit.

So. In the moment, when they're both baring the whole of their lack of knowing scope, Astarion simply sighs in open concession. Stands, reaching back for the clasps of his finely stitched mockery of faith, and letting them come undone one by one until the entirety of that pristine silk is tangled somewhere around his ankles— easily stepped out of.

He's brought nothing else with him. And honestly, bareness suits him just as well as he closes the distance, shoving the Ascian's beloved cat aside with the back of his hand before fitting himself in its place.

"And here I thought you'd have all the answers already."

Sol meows in compliant, shifting to just settle elsewhere on the bed, where he can still curl against Emet-Selch-- who exhales a sigh of his own as he gives the cat a soothing pat, watching him begin to purr. Astarion is allowed to settle where he likes, Emet-Selch shifting to accomodate him before reaching for the blanket he hasn't yet covered up with.

"I believed I had," he says simply, quietly. It was all settled, for so long. Rejoin the worlds, regain everything he loved. He had but to continue his work, and eventually, it would succeed; his immortality would see to that. And aside from his colleagues, all the people of those worlds were simply pawns on a board, creatures whose measure he had taken a thousand times over.

...so he'd told himself. He knows he had moments of what he saw as weakness, then. Pushed them aside, not denying so much as distancing from them. But he had always had others at his side, before the calamity upended everything and left him more or less alone with his duty, and-- well.

It isn't bad at all to have this now, even if he can only bring himself to reach so far. Admit to so much. Maybe he wouldn't mind having Astarion closer than he's fully acknowledged. Tonight, he just pulls the blanket over them both, easing into warmth.

"I suppose that was part of the problem."

Accommodated so easily.

It feels strange, still. One foot still in the past where so much deception hinged on gestures like this one— one in the recent present where certainty came apart as surely as brittle stone. Where that leaves him now, Astarion isn't certain. Doesn't know what to make of it, and fears— despite the way he curls against Emet-Selch (fingers threaded against thin fabric, one leg woven between the Ascian's own) all lean muscle and light touch— where it might lead at so much as the first step.

But tonight, it doesn't matter.

His exhale is low. Thin.

It comes before he relaxes fully.

"What, arrogance?" Asked mildly. More curiosity than anything else, though the wording itself might not make for mercifully smoothed feathers.

"Or the narrow scope of everything you used to know."

"I would hardly have called that narrow. No, more of the former."

He can admit to as much now, at least, sounding more tired than ruffled at the implications there.

"There was so much that we knew-- that we had discovered, created, learned-- that it seemed impossible for the remnant worlds formed out of our home to ever measure up, in any way. I lived among their people for eons, explored them for aught of worth, but of course they never compared to a past that no longer existed. They never could have."

And he could hardly see anything of value in something lesser. Small flickers of promise here and there were simply hints of what once was, of their potential once rejoined.

“Was that the truth, do you think? How so very lacking you found them to be...” his chin meets the edge of Emet-Selch’s shoulder where it fits against the junction of his chest, eyes drifting shut for the longest of blinks in comfortable succession.

“Or was that all you.”

"Objectively speaking, I was not wrong," he says, with a light little shrug. "They did not measure up. Had only a fraction of our aether, no capacity for creation magic, greatly diminished lifespans. They suffered mortality."

A few moments pass before he allows, "But there ultimately was some worth in them. Mortals laid me low in the end, after all, and the one who accomplished it-- few were more dedicated to saving the world than they." A briefer pause, debating. "Very much like their original self."

Edited 2021-12-30 07:41 (UTC)

“Hm. Brought down by your own creation, in a sense.”

How very fitting. Poetic, even, if Astarion were musing over it as one would a sonnet rather than any true reflection of life once-lived. The catalyst for changing Emet-Selch’s mind, perhaps.

Or the thought that resigned him to simply fade into obscurity once relocated through the Fade.

“But...what about here?”

The past is all well and good, but there’s no denying that part of their discussion hadn’t been entirely related to old wounds. Lost dreams.

Over the last half-year, something’s shifted. Astarion’s certain of it.

Edited 2021-12-31 02:58 (UTC)

"I would not quite call them my own creation. They were a remnant of an old friend."

Fitting, perhaps, for them to be the one that ended his life, forcibly removed him from the unending path he'd set himself on.

He reaches up, idly carding his fingers through Astarion's hair as he speaks.

"Here, however-- well. I must admit I do still find it lacking even in comparison to the state my own world lay in, ere I departed it, and people are similar across any given world. I do not relish the thought of possibly never returning, even if only so that I may eventually rest where I belong.

But there are parts of it I find interesting. Smaller parts that I suppose I do have some attachment to."

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