[It's a beautiful dream. One Astarion wants to believe in— oh not the idea of healing the way Leto says it (a pill too grand to swallow in one breath for a throat as atrophied as his own), but the sheer time to. The opportunity, the chance, the freedom (twice over).
He's no idea if it will ever come.
He's no idea how this will end when they return, other than the fact that he's willing to fight. To risk so much— and conversely: that there is one thing he is unwilling to risk, it if comes to that (the precipice he comes back to again and again after the bitter creep of sulfur into their seclusion; part and parcel of claiming anything for himself, that Cazador always follows. A throughline he can track from Thedas, to Toril, to here). It's etched into the fine lines of his face under thin swaths of pearl-pale curls. His past. His present train of thought, immersed solely in listening. One intersecting the other somewhere just between his brows. But considering all of that....
Perhaps there's only one way this next section of their conversation could go.
A glint of garnet eyes, uplifted. Flickering. Lashes darker than a shade in close quarters. He doesn't know why his tongue pins in tight across his fangs before he manages to pull it loose.]
The magic— [err. ] My darling, the spell you—
[No, wait, he's sliding headlong past this gentle offering. This fragile balm. This moment, perfect as it is. Stop, Astarion. Refocus, Astarion.
He leans closer. Chances a single scrape along the slope between their bridges in slow gratitude to let sentiment show through even in segue. A clearer head, albeit not a cavalier one.]
Would you cast it again, I mean. With cause.
[Before he agrees. Signs his glass heart over to a dream he might not touch, alluring as it is, there's something he needs to know first.]
no subject
He's no idea if it will ever come.
He's no idea how this will end when they return, other than the fact that he's willing to fight. To risk so much— and conversely: that there is one thing he is unwilling to risk, it if comes to that (the precipice he comes back to again and again after the bitter creep of sulfur into their seclusion; part and parcel of claiming anything for himself, that Cazador always follows. A throughline he can track from Thedas, to Toril, to here). It's etched into the fine lines of his face under thin swaths of pearl-pale curls. His past. His present train of thought, immersed solely in listening. One intersecting the other somewhere just between his brows. But considering all of that....
Perhaps there's only one way this next section of their conversation could go.
A glint of garnet eyes, uplifted. Flickering. Lashes darker than a shade in close quarters. He doesn't know why his tongue pins in tight across his fangs before he manages to pull it loose.]
The magic— [err. ] My darling, the spell you—
[No, wait, he's sliding headlong past this gentle offering. This fragile balm. This moment, perfect as it is. Stop, Astarion. Refocus, Astarion.
He leans closer. Chances a single scrape along the slope between their bridges in slow gratitude to let sentiment show through even in segue. A clearer head, albeit not a cavalier one.]
Would you cast it again, I mean. With cause.
[Before he agrees. Signs his glass heart over to a dream he might not touch, alluring as it is, there's something he needs to know first.]