illithidnapped

[Ah. Ahah.

The soft noises he makes are oh-so-knowing, but if nothing else they never graze along patronizing.] That depends on the type of boredom, darling.

And the place.

You're not in the woods right now, are you?

Sundermount? ( hmm. an option. )

No.

Kirkwall, perhaps?

[He's fishing.]

The Gallows.

( why did they keep that name. )

The Gallows? No wonder you're bored out of your mind. The place practically reeks of stale misery.

Still, it's not all bad: you're practically within a stone's throw of me. And what's more is that so long as you're not running around naked with twigs and berries in your hair, frolicking with doves and porcupines and whatnot, I might just know a thing or two that could keep all that pesky little boredom at bay.

So.

Let's start simple, shall we?

What sort of things do you do for fun.

You have never frolicked?

( less defensive, more- tucking that information away for later use ).

Drink with companions. ( not alone. that would be very sad. ) Read. Hunt, but we have established that you are not fond of nature.

Not in the wilds, darling. Within city walls, they generally just call it streaking. And what’s more, come morning you won’t wake up with grass in your crack.

Well. Not unless you put it there on purpose, anyway.

[That aside:]

What about plays? Soirées? Gambling in a dark alleyway with the most disreputable creatures.

Or...the Blooming Rose, perhaps. [If loneliness is striking particularly hard this evening.]

Yes, yes, ( he lists off, ) no, and no.

Am I the sort you imagine has to pay for affection?

( genuinely curious, no sharp note of defence. no one's ever suggested as much. )

Edited 2021-09-01 00:47 (UTC)

It's a business, my dear, just like any other. You'd be surprised the kind of perfectly lovely friends you can make just by paying to let them lay around and relax with you for an hour or two.

Why, I myself spend a wealth of time there when I have a little to spare. Good gossip, peerlessly informative conversation— terrible drinks, though.

[But that can't be helped.]

And as for your question, well.

You're sleeping alone now, aren't you? What with your dearest love far from reach.

Edited 2021-09-01 07:17 (UTC)

( dry: ) I enjoy very much that the intimate details of my personal life are known to Riftwatch at large.

Oh you poor thing.

Well you'll be happy to know I'm not Riftwatch at large. And anything said here will remain entirely confidential.

Or at least mostly.

[Ahah.]

But to put to bed your countless woes, why don't we start by having you come over? Figure out a game plan together. In person.

Promise I won't bite.

I expect no more in an organization this close knit.

( they all bathe together. nothing is sacred. )

Shall I bring wine?

[Astarion has, by some estimation, roughly nine or ten bottles of wine in his Lowtown closet of a home at all times. More than plenty to entertain with without requiring more from his guests.

Instead, he's all teeth when he petitions ever-so-prettily:]

Please, darling. I'm fresh out.

And do mind yourself. Lowtown isn't the friendliest of places at night. I'll come running if you call, of course, but given that it's quite cozy inside, I'd rather not have to.

You, still wet with the ichor of the Fade from your arrival, lecture me about Lowtown?

( it's very nearly fond. there's a good deal of rustling in the background, silk crunching and the idle clink of glass against wood. )

Expect me within the hour.

I might be wet, but you're still the one that came to me for advice in the first place— I'm just covering my bases.

[And with that, he'll leave his dear acquaintance to it.]

In the meanwhile, Astarion returns to the miserly hoard of trinkets, treasures, junk and unadorned mementos cluttering the span of his flat. 'Cleaning' isn't the word for it, the way he either sweeps some of it away with his foot or drops it into a corner to be forgotten, but it's an effort, at least. And it keeps him busy for all of...

Oh, five minutes.

The rest of the time he deals cards to no one but himself, practicing the art of deceit— until a knock at the door breaks the silence, and he welcomes his guest with a dagger in hand. Customary, of course. Simple precaution.

"So you made it after all."

There is something consistently delightful about new rifters, all the little mannerisms they keep that mark them as outsiders as much as the shards. Watching them learn more about Thedas sparks a little of the same joy as watching an elfling learn how to shoot or write or skin a rabbit, and so Thranduil smiles indulgently as he slips past Astarion and into the tiny room, taking down his hood and easing the leather gloves off finger-by-finger.

"Do you have so little faith in my ability to protect myself," he asks, turning his back to the other elf to look around the room and take in the detritus. "Or is it my sense of direction you doubt?"

Gloves in one hand, he undoes the clasp of his cloak and tugs it off to drape over his arm. "Lowtown, and not the Alienage."

At the very mention of those two differing locations, Astarion lets out a pointed scoff.

"The Alienage can rot. I'm a city elf, not a city elf: I'm destined for greater places than this, and it's only a matter of time before I get there." So yes, in fact. Maybe he was a touch concerned assumptions (even between peers) might prolong the delay between departure and destination.

Still, he plays it off quite easily, a smile working its way across his lips.

"As for the rest," Astarion says, shutting the door with a single heel, gesturing towards a rickety little table with only two half-standing chairs, "maybe I'm just overprotective."

"Of me?"

Still amused, he eases a chair out from the table with one foot, gestures to it elegantly, and pulls a bottle from the bundle of his cloak. The glass is sea-dark, the wax sealing it a deep red. The label is, naturally, written in Orlesian.

"Glasses?" he asks, and when Astarion cues him, he takes them up. After a discrete pause to wipe the rim against his sleeve, he pours, first for his host, and then himself.

"Do I strike you as needing protection, or is this merely some chivalric urge." His eyes glitter as he looks at the other elf. "Are you hoping nobility of character will elevate you to Hightown?"

He’s right to wipe at it; Astarion hasn’t washed them in weeks.

That information, however, he keeps to himself.

“Tall and remarkable as you are, I’d have trouble fretting about your sturdiness, at least.” But that’s the only hint he’ll hand off as to his true motivation, sipping away at that wine as a segue before—

Oh. Oh, it’s lovely.

Infinitely better than all the other stolen bottles cluttering the space around them. Not swill. Not plonk, closer to sweetness than vinegar. He can’t keep the look of surprise off his face. The last time he’d had a bottle this nice, it was red Batteseria. Months ago now. When he truly was nothing more than wet behind long ears, clinging to Fenris’ coattails.

Now he makes his own way.

“And no. I’m not a fool. Money is what elevates anyone, anywhere. Money and power. I intend to find both.”

He’s pleased, a confident sort of warmth spreading across his face as he takes his own seat, relaxes into it. How nice it is, to be appreciated. How pleasing to bast in another’s delight.

Thranduil takes a sip from his own glass, then rolls the stem between thumb and finger.

“What would you fret about?” he asks, conversational, the weight of his whole attention on Astarion. He cultivated a number of affectations while he was Provost and before; the fidget, breathing more often, remembering to blink. He has dropped a number of them now that he is out of the spotlight, drawing upon the tranquility as a shield or a comfort, whichever sounds less pitiable at the time.

“Money cannot buy an elf as much power as a man, here. There will be a greater measure afforded to you making your name in Riftwatch— though what comes after is surely a thought that will have occurred to you.” He does not bother to advise not to attempt to marry into it.

“What do you hope to shield yourself from with it?” A pointed glance.

Astarion pauses, his attention already elsewhere— relaxed expression flickering briefly when he’s caught off guard by that final, unexpectedly potent question. Like an animal spotted in the brush, he goes entirely too still.

And then his mouth pulls upwards at its corner, just by the faintest of degrees. He pushes it aside with grace, all that telling stiffness. Or he tries to, anyway.

“All the terrible things lurking in the dark here, and you have to ask?”

Trading a question for a question is evasiveness at its finest. Fortunately for Thranduil, Astarion is incapable of shutting up. “Status inside the echelons of a minor resistance with no real influential leverage is as useful to me as soiled tissue. Riftwatch is a target. A shield. And I intend to be ready for anything. Even us losing this war.”

He'd said if it ever came down to it, he’d flee this wretched city, and Riftwatch as well without a second thought. A pact. A promise. His mind still hasn’t changed.

“Until then, the more powerful I become, the safer I’ll be. Surely you understand.”

Another elf, like him. Here. One who’s been here longer, in fact.

He gestures with the glass, the wine swirling.

“Corypheus has shown what he will do to Rifters should he win. There was… a slip in time in which some of us experienced as much. You might look up the records in the library.”

He drinks, then considers his glass.

“I am not attempting to dissuade you, but it would be rude of me not to inform you the information exists.”

He appreciates pragmatism. He is, after all, a grey elf, and an elf of Mirkwood besides. The luxury of prattling on about the lesser evil being no real choice at all is just that to him.

“I do,” he admits. “Visibility will be your friend. Patronage among the nobility of Kirkwall is of great use. I would suggest attendance at a Chantry to start- vice or virtue, everyone of consequence attends.”

And then he frowns, as if the wine has gone sour in his mouth.

“… but that is hardly a pleasant subject.”

“I know the bastard despises elves already. And admittedly I’m not much for study,” says the man who'd spent weeks in quarantine learning all that he could about Thedas under the urgent, needling press of self-protection, “but I imagine the rest is just the icing on the miserable cake. I’ve met his type before.”

Not that Astarion opts confess it outright. Why he’d snapped at Gwenaëlle across the network for pressing. For unknowingly stumbling into the thorny tangle he works so tirelessly to mask.

Or maybe just to forget.

Instead, it’s only when Thranduil lets slip something of his own assumed discomfort that Astarion twists in his focus. He sits at last, the stark difference in their height meaning he’d had a better eyeline while standing, but it’d be unforgivably rude to scrape and pry as the only member of conversation still on his feet.

No, he’ll play the lesser— the ignorant, in fact— for this when he asks, ever so delicately, “Is that where you started?”

“All tyrants are tyrants alike,” Thranduil agrees, and motions to offer to refill Astarion’s glass. The bottle won’t survive the trip back to the Gallows, and Thranduil is hardly the type to leave it unfinished.

“No,” he admits, near-instantly. “The place of elves here was unimaginable to me; the slavery, the mayfly lifespans.” He pauses, to assess Astarion’s reaction, to compare, the bold assumption that they are the same grounded in some fact: no Rifter elf has ever complained of their people being in universally similar conditions, all more alike to the elvhen.

“I was nobility in Arda, a leader of my people. For a time, I conducted myself here as I had in my own land. Centuries of habit fade slowly.” He shrugs, somehow managing to make it elegant. The silk helps, as does the hair. “But I realized that to get what I wanted, I needed to assimilate. To adapt. We are not separate from Thedas. We will live through the consequences of our actions.”

He smiles at the table, gently self-effacing. “A gift: you are able to learn from my mistakes.”

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