illithidnapped

No, you— mm.

[He works his teeth. Pricks his own tongue against them for pressing so hard. He doesn’t know how to say it.

This is impossible. A horrible ordeal, and not one he’d intended to wrap around his own neck like a damn chain.

How did he end up here? Not here here. But— he’d intended to use them. All of them. A shield against everything that could possibly do him in, and now, with fear beating rampant in his own paranoid chest, half of him wonders if he’ll know how to time this right. Fighting Corypheus, rising to wealth, making an exit if and or when things grow too tempestuous to weather.

If it was only himself that he had to worry about...]

I made a deal. A...promise, I suppose. If Tevinter ever pressed south to Kirkwall itself, I’d be gone.

He wanted me to warn him, before I left. So that we could go together. [He doesn't specify who. Maybe Ellie won't need clarification.]

...He’s terribly lonely, you know. Though he doesn’t like to let on.

[And damn it all, that’s not where he’d meant to go with this story.]

If he thinks I’m some sort of newly minted apostate, or that I’m fleeing the Circle, well. I’m not so certain that’ll be in the cards anymore.

So I just—

[He just—]

I don’t know.

[How do you confess something like that? That for the first time the thing you're running from just as much is the idea that you might have something to lose.]

[Ellie has an idea of who it is, though she can't say for certain, and she listens in thoughtful silence. He's so rarely this serious, but this is serious. And fucking uncomfortable for more reasons than one.

He is not the only one terribly lonely, or the only one who doesn't like to let on.

Riftwatch and the Gallows seem to be made up of wayward souls, people who need something or perhaps someone to believe in.]

Why wouldn't it be? He can't want you to go to a Circle, can he?

[It's not Astarion's story to tell. Granted that's also never been much of a roadblock for him before, given that he's inclined to openly spill whatever secrets come rushing to mind just as soon as they come rushing to mind, so long as they're not his own. Add to that Fenris' willingness to openly discuss it with anyone that so much as looks at his armor, or his tattoos, or just him, and there's not really any reason to hold back.

But Astarion holds back anyway, swallowing quietly in the silence before:]

Mages hurt him. Deeply. [There's a good reason why Astarion's never confessed that Thedas had sapped away all his magical prowess along with the rest of his vampiric abnormalities; the more distance he puts between himself and what the man hates, the less likely he is to get hit by any contemptuous blowback.

That's how friendship works, after all: you lie through your teeth, and everything's fine.]

For Fenris, the Circle is safety. Order.

I can't go pissing on that without doing the same to his pain. And I certainly can't go about linking arms with all our resident, rebellious casters without—

[He stops there. Scoffs witheringly.]

Obviously.

And you're not a fucking mage.

[Ellie isn't the most sympathetic of people sometimes, but she has no trouble calling it like she sees it. Astarion's afraid, and anyone in his position would be. She can understand that, but sometimes being afraid fucks with your head.

Sometimes being terrified losing someone can do worse.]

You're not pissing on the Circle by not wanting to be locked up in it. And if he expects you not to do anything it takes to make sure that shit never happens to you again-

Hell, if he's not willing to make sure of it himself, then he can fuck himself, and he doesn't deserve you.

He isn't—

[It’s wilting. Withering. His urge to argue is based on the knee-jerk thought that no, he sincerely doubts Fenris would let that happen, given his understanding of Astarion’s past. Given the fact that Astarion certainly isn’t a mage, and isn’t dealing in demonic pacts, either.

So. When she puts it like that, the pieces fall back into place.

He calms.]

We have time, at least. To come up with a way to avoid all of this mess, whatever it shakes out to.

Just...

Be careful, in the meanwhile. The sooner someone talks you into picking a side, the sooner you make yourself a fresher set of enemies.

And we already have more than enough of those.

[Ellie breathes out, a release of tension, glad he's understood- and hopefully, it's comforting in some really ass-backwards way. Best thing they can do is keep their heads, but that's no small feat.

And when she speaks, she sounds much older than she is.]

No. This whole fucking thing's gonna end in a bloodbath. There's not gonna be a winner, just who's left to pick up the pieces. I've seen it happen enough times.

[FEDRA and the Fireflies. The WLF. The Seraphites. Even the Rattlers. Every single time it's ended in bullets and bombs, fire and ash and blood.]

[Sometimes it feels as though she knows exactly where his mind is leaping before he even manages to get the words out. In so many ways, it reminds him of why he feels at ease around her, whenever she's near: she understands.

He doesn't ask why or how, the specifics of her wretched world don't need underscoring when it's left its own tangible marks, deep as scarring in her skin.

Being alone. Being hunted. Being a monster, set apart from all the rest.]

Undoubtedly. When the tyrant falls, unity will be the first thing to go with it. Between territories, between people...within Riftwatch, too.

[And, for that matter....]

Has your anchor shard hurt you, yet?

Yep.

[Sometimes it's exhausting to be so paranoid, but for Ellie isn't finally started feeling like the default, and not something she stresses over. She'll be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen, but she's come to expect that plenty of people will turn on each other once there isn't a common goal, or common enemy.

Riftwatch is better than most, it's true, but she still places her faith and loyalty in individuals, rather than causes.

She's learned better. Or likes to think she has.]

... kinda twinges, like a healing wound. Every once in a while.

[Her voice tightens, zeroing in on the comment.]

Has it been hurting you?

When I was in that lightless chasm, yes. Before it too, though only just. Time. Distance. It apparently equals pain, the more it builds.

That mage was right: no matter how far we run, we’ll always have to come back because of these marks. But—

[He pauses to chew on his lip, thinking only one step ahead of the way he talks: quick. Quick as anything. Always.]

There are decent places to hide in Kirkwall, even if war comes. Darktown especially, and all it’s winding, pitch-dark tunnels. I’ll be committing them to memory, soon.

You should, too.

[Astarion’s certain he doesn’t need to say why.]

[Survival is the name of the game, and has been for so very long. However, even knowing the world as she does, Ellie's enjoyed the taste of doing as she likes. Not having to hide, whether it's her immunity, or the pieces of themselves some otherworld gods left in her, or the fact that she's from another world.

Burrowing herself into the dark like a mole sounds endlessly bleak, and the prospect of being trapped in Kirkwall...]

Guess that's why they call it an anchor.

[She says dryly.]

Edited (FOR! MAT!) 2021-09-12 04:34 (UTC)

Chin up, darling. We're survivors, the three of us.

[A fact he's proud of to the very marrow of his bones, despite all his resentment and bitterness and residual, lingering fear. They're not weak. Not limping, weeping, reaching things, desperate to be coddled.

There was a reason why Astarion turned on Gwen for likening him to the refugees wailing in their lot.]

And what's more, we can leave. If we're smart enough, wipe over our tracks enough, we can limit our return trips, unseen each and every time.

[Wishful thinking, maybe, but even in the depths of pessimism, Astarion's prone to assume they'll do more than succeed.]

[Few people use the word survivor with a true understanding of what it means. Tess had likened it to shitty people before Joel corrected her: survivors, and Ellie through the years has come to understand exactly what they both meant.

But she nods, slowly, putting it together in her mind. Even if it's wishful thinking, a chance in hell, she's built her life on such chances.]

My powers'll come in handy for that much, at least.

And getting you two out.

Well. Cross that bridge when we come to it.

[He won't argue that she has use— but in a rarer moment of something he can't quite pinpoint, it's not the only thing he wants framing her. Not now, at least. Once the sun rises again, well.

With him, who can say.]

Or at the very least when there's time to start scouting out proper escape routes.

For now, get some rest, darling. You're not a vampire, after all.

Mhm.

[And for a second, it seems like that might be it. She jumped in on him in a state of panic, everything else pushed to the wayside, because everything fucking happened at once.

But now that they have a moment to breathe-]

Wait- no. Hold on.

[Clearly he thought this conversation was over. Clearly some part of him wants it to be, given how long it takes him to answer.]

...what.

[Clearly.]

You know what.

[Petulant as a child dragging its heels:]

I'm a vampire, not a mind reader: no, I don't.

Oh, bullshit--

[Yeah, she sounds pissed.]

Did you think I wouldn't find out?

[Strewth.]

...ah. Did she...

Yeah. She did. And I'm the one who talked to her, so don't get any ideas about fucking around.

[Ellie sounds bitterly angry, and tired, and maybe a shade hurt, though she's trying to ignore that part.]

I didn't— [He cuts himself off with the faintest scoff of indignation: it's difficult to lock horns across the crystals without the benefit of seeing one another. It's even worse to have to do it right on the heels of everything else.]

All I said was for her to leave you alone. That she needed to keep her damned mouth shut, or I'd take matters into my own hands.

[All right, maybe he'd said a little more than that. But still.]

Clearly she didn't listen.

[She knows why he did it. And hell, she'd probably do the same if the situations were reversed, she could hardly do less, but- fuck, it hurts, and she doesn't know why. And the way he argues it just pisses her off more.]

I didn't need you to fucking- go behind my back to try to protect me.

[Ellie cuts off, and takes a painful breath.

Oh. Oh.

There it is.]

[He can hear her breathing. The way it starts, sharp as anything— and then stops completely, hitching high and harsh, cutting away from anger into—

Into something he recognizes far too easily.

He's careful in the seconds that follow, voice gone entirely feather-light.]

...Ellie?

Just don't-

[Ellie pauses, shuts her eyes on her side of the crystal's connection, her heart racing, rushing in her ears as she pulls herself back together.]

Don't lie to me.

Not about that.

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