[Other lives. Other worlds. They're a wave sweeping over his awareness for the second time, dashing everything upon its fractal shores. Together was the constant that Astarion initially held onto (a sliver of charged magnetism worked beneath his skin in verdant light— what he'd mistaken for awe casts such a different shadow knowing what he does now), but to catch a glimpse of— what? A menagerie of lifetimes? A cacaphony? A chorus of memories still rings within his ears and he can't shut out the heat it brings to the borders of his eyes or the adjacent depths of his own sinuses, their burn convincing him for a moment he's still alive enough to need to inhale just to shake it, that painful, distant longing for what (is, and) isn't within reach.
It means it holds true, Cazador's promise Astarion would never be without him. It means that to him, death was no more than an open door rather than a dead end— the foothold by which he sank his claws into their shoulders again and again and again.... (Does he know, then? Did he once dream as Fenris does now? Does he remember every slight? Every rejection?) There's a sudden ache battering his shoulders, boring through his scars; questioning if that razor sank in deep for retribution worn in place of bitter muscle memory. Dark streets. Darker prospects.
Yet there's still an echo of spent triumph lingering in his veins from that same source.
The picture perfect glimpse of what it might be (—no ) —was like to laugh after the storm. To outlive it, outstrip it, outmeasure it, rather than simply run until his legs give out or luck itself does, whichever one comes first.
For the thousandth time, what began in Thedas finds its voice again: he wants it. Like a fever that won't break, like an addiction he can't muzzle, he's brushed against an ending to this story worth more than its own prose, and by the second it's begun to calcify— or fester, either might be true hinged solely on perspective— each half-breath spent searching those tsavorite eyes for any sign of misdirection is one more drop of lost determination brought back from the grave.
Again: there's hardness setting in beneath the angle of his brows.
Again: it's nearly dawn, but he's tempted to leave now— allies and entourage be damned, he could tear his former master's throat from its soft housing. Oh, he couldn't, of course— but fury promises he could.]
This'll be the last.
[His fingers alight on Leto's cheek, bridging the gaps between past and present. Like the thought before that assertion, truth and possibility weigh less than his desire.
Less than the press of his forehead against Leto's own.]
I'll send his soul screaming back to whatever demon he made pact with, and I'll make you immortal, and he will never come to haunt our lives again.
[One final pause, touch sinking low enough to trace along thin gauze.]
no subject
It means it holds true, Cazador's promise Astarion would never be without him. It means that to him, death was no more than an open door rather than a dead end— the foothold by which he sank his claws into their shoulders again and again and again.... (Does he know, then? Did he once dream as Fenris does now? Does he remember every slight? Every rejection?) There's a sudden ache battering his shoulders, boring through his scars; questioning if that razor sank in deep for retribution worn in place of bitter muscle memory. Dark streets. Darker prospects.
Yet there's still an echo of spent triumph lingering in his veins from that same source.
The picture perfect glimpse of what it might be (—no ) —was like to laugh after the storm. To outlive it, outstrip it, outmeasure it, rather than simply run until his legs give out or luck itself does, whichever one comes first.
For the thousandth time, what began in Thedas finds its voice again: he wants it. Like a fever that won't break, like an addiction he can't muzzle, he's brushed against an ending to this story worth more than its own prose, and by the second it's begun to calcify— or fester, either might be true hinged solely on perspective— each half-breath spent searching those tsavorite eyes for any sign of misdirection is one more drop of lost determination brought back from the grave.
Again: there's hardness setting in beneath the angle of his brows.
Again: it's nearly dawn, but he's tempted to leave now— allies and entourage be damned, he could tear his former master's throat from its soft housing. Oh, he couldn't, of course— but fury promises he could.]
This'll be the last.
[His fingers alight on Leto's cheek, bridging the gaps between past and present. Like the thought before that assertion, truth and possibility weigh less than his desire.
Less than the press of his forehead against Leto's own.]
I'll send his soul screaming back to whatever demon he made pact with, and I'll make you immortal, and he will never come to haunt our lives again.
[One final pause, touch sinking low enough to trace along thin gauze.]
Death can't harm what it can't touch.