illithidnapped

“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."

An old friend.

At that mention, Astarion wonders if Emet-Selch’s loss was truly won, or if the old creature simply fell prey to overwhelming loneliness. The way emotion resonates so often, unconsciously weakening all defenses.

But he wasn’t there. No way to tell now, he supposes.

The attention sets Astarion’s own focus roaming, eyes drifting shut beneath the soft weight of scuffing fingertips.

“Mmhm. The cat, of course.”

"Well, of course."

Carried on a hint of a huffed laugh, wry amusement in his tone.

"The cat, after all, is the only one who sleeps as much as I should like to. Truly the ideal companion."

“When you put it like that, I’m surprised you’re not jealous of it instead.”

Wretched nuisance that it is in Astarion’s own opinion, Emet-Selch hardly seems inclined to agree— or vice versa for that matter, given the way it adheres itself to his side, purring even now.

Ugh.

"Why, don't tell me that you are, to have such thoughts."

A little lazier, slower-- small signs that tiredness is creeping in, though he's not yet yawning with it.

“Only of how much you spoil it, maybe.” That much he’ll readily admit, though perhaps it’s a touch unfair, given the way he’s being catered to at present— one hand of his own falling to rest light across the center of Emet-Selch’s chest.

“But I suppose there’s no harm in sharing from time to time.”

"And here I thought you were spoiled enough, at least by my own standards."

Case in point: all of this, the way he allows it all easily enough (or just allows it, period.)

"Mayhap I should not go easy on either of you."

“Mayhap you could try”

He confesses, yawning against his own will.

“But I think we both know you’d never be able to see it through.” One pet, one plant thriving away in the nearby sill— one stretch of thousands of years, trying to recover a world long lost.

“You’re a soft heart like that, darling.”

"And you are hardly all sharp edges yourself."

His gaze drifts to the planter at that, briefly, the hand on astarion's head slowly settling into stillness. One more stroke through his hair.

"...go to sleep, Astarion," he says after that weighted moment, instead of adding anything else to that particular thought.

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