[The thing is: it doesn't feel like he thought it would.
He'd thought it would be like . . . oh, like rising from the water, perhaps. A gasp of air, a sudden shock as his environment changed— this is who I am, this is what the present is, a lurching dissonance as he went from Astarion's own memories to reality. Instead: it's like reading a sentence from a book. Yes, he went somewhere else for a moment, and yes, you can argue that might he need some reorientation, but it would be strange if he did.
It's so easy.
It's too easy, to his mind. Too easy to slip in and out of someone's memories; too easy to blink and glance up and say yes, I saw that, I heard that, and with no one the wiser. And Leto doesn't really know what to do with that feeling save push it away, adding it to the pile of uncertainty and distrust he has when it comes to magic.
Better to focus on the memory itself. For that . . . oh, that was well worth the effort. The details do remind him of Tevinter, familiar in the strangest way: countless parties served standing dutifully behind Danarius' seat, and they weren't all torturous. He will never say he recalls them fondly, but not every single moment in enslavement was a misery, either. His own memories amalgam: he can almost feel the marble beneath his bare feet, smell the sharp scent of wine and listen to the idle gossip of who was caught dallying with who and what it all means . . . and all the while, the endless glide of dancers fixed in their waltzing patterns stretched out before him. Pretty and pleasant and a little dull, but all the more welcome for it.
But that sense of belonging, that sense of rightness, so firm and unyielding that you could build an empire upon it— that, he has not ever felt. Not once. Perhaps he had a shadow of it with the Fog Warriors, but even then, it was a feeling build on shifting sand. And it's nothing to do with misery, understand; it's nothing to do with feeling as though he doesn't fit in. But there is such a difference between finding kinship with a group of individuals (with a vampire, Leto amends warmly, and turns his hand to catch Astarion's fingers and stroke them with his thumb) and that. That sense of belonging not just in this party, but in this society. This role. This world, where all the rules are laid out and all you ever have to do is play along.
Gods, who would ever want to give it up?
And Leto tries so hard to hold onto that thought, for it is not often he understands why nobles are the way they are.]
It felt wonderful, Astarion.
[Start there, warmly and sincerely, for it did. And then:]
Is it a bittersweet thing to recall? Or merely happy?
[For frankly, both could apply to his own memories of his past. And he has further thoughts, you know. Questions he wants to ask, details he wants to point out— but start there. Start with the tone of it, for that will dictate how this conversation goes.]
no subject
[The thing is: it doesn't feel like he thought it would.
He'd thought it would be like . . . oh, like rising from the water, perhaps. A gasp of air, a sudden shock as his environment changed— this is who I am, this is what the present is, a lurching dissonance as he went from Astarion's own memories to reality. Instead: it's like reading a sentence from a book. Yes, he went somewhere else for a moment, and yes, you can argue that might he need some reorientation, but it would be strange if he did.
It's so easy.
It's too easy, to his mind. Too easy to slip in and out of someone's memories; too easy to blink and glance up and say yes, I saw that, I heard that, and with no one the wiser. And Leto doesn't really know what to do with that feeling save push it away, adding it to the pile of uncertainty and distrust he has when it comes to magic.
Better to focus on the memory itself. For that . . . oh, that was well worth the effort. The details do remind him of Tevinter, familiar in the strangest way: countless parties served standing dutifully behind Danarius' seat, and they weren't all torturous. He will never say he recalls them fondly, but not every single moment in enslavement was a misery, either. His own memories amalgam: he can almost feel the marble beneath his bare feet, smell the sharp scent of wine and listen to the idle gossip of who was caught dallying with who and what it all means . . . and all the while, the endless glide of dancers fixed in their waltzing patterns stretched out before him. Pretty and pleasant and a little dull, but all the more welcome for it.
But that sense of belonging, that sense of rightness, so firm and unyielding that you could build an empire upon it— that, he has not ever felt. Not once. Perhaps he had a shadow of it with the Fog Warriors, but even then, it was a feeling build on shifting sand. And it's nothing to do with misery, understand; it's nothing to do with feeling as though he doesn't fit in. But there is such a difference between finding kinship with a group of individuals (with a vampire, Leto amends warmly, and turns his hand to catch Astarion's fingers and stroke them with his thumb) and that. That sense of belonging not just in this party, but in this society. This role. This world, where all the rules are laid out and all you ever have to do is play along.
Gods, who would ever want to give it up?
And Leto tries so hard to hold onto that thought, for it is not often he understands why nobles are the way they are.]
It felt wonderful, Astarion.
[Start there, warmly and sincerely, for it did. And then:]
Is it a bittersweet thing to recall? Or merely happy?
[For frankly, both could apply to his own memories of his past. And he has further thoughts, you know. Questions he wants to ask, details he wants to point out— but start there. Start with the tone of it, for that will dictate how this conversation goes.]