illithidnapped

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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