illithidnapped

[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.

[The temptation's there, pressed to the edge of his tongue. He could say it was harmless, that he never set out to hurt her, or to do anything but ensure they'd both be on their best behavior.

Instead his fangs grit where they're pressed tight against one another, silence settled so heavily across his shoulders that it almost feels like a shroud.]

All right. [Set down like stone, and just as weighted.]

I won't.

[He doesn't promise. Doesn't swear it. But in his world, oaths and apologies are only ever false flattery. Entirely empty at their core.

So he chooses not lean on them now.]

[She doesn't miss the lack of a promise, or the heaviness of his words. Just like she didn't miss the way he called her by her name, or the quality of the silence now.

Ellie swallows back the feeling, fights it down, and takes a deep breath. Lets her fingers relax from where they're biting into her palms.]

Okay.

[Okay.

And he takes it as a sign that this is it. This is as far as the both of them can crawl tonight— between his fear and her own, and the exhaustion that it brings, dragging them both down to the barest marrow of themselves.

All he offers is a low sound. A kind of hum in concession. Or finality. Or...whatever this is they're trading off when everything else is done and dusted.]

Goodnight, then, darling.

[A pause, before:]

Sweet dreams.

Goodnight.

[They both sound wrenched dry. Neither of them have anything left tonight. She's not upset anymore, not really. Not in any way that won't boil off overnight.

Still, she's unlikely to sleep for hours yet, her thoughts a fuzzy static.]

You too. When you get there.

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