illithidnapped | INBOX II

what

what is this

why was this drinking at the other tavern today

Edited 2023-11-29 04:45 (UTC)

[He's trying not to laugh so hard it hurts. It actually, stupidly hurts, practically stabbing out a response of his own underneath Leto's work of art with the lumpy addition of a mug of beer.

And a hat.

Probably.]

Was it dressed like this?

Looking especially dour?

So utterly soused it couldn't blink straight?

that is not an answer to my question astarion why is there a FLYING ELEPHANT DRINKING BEER HERE

Sweetheart.

Angel.

Darling.

Precious little moonstone.

Dear beloved wolf.

Treasure beyond treasures.

Kadan.

[Don't be testy with him!!

Or do.

It's cute. And so so fun to rile.]

I'm just trying to puzzle out if you're having feverish hallucinations from overusing your own magic, or

[and that's a much more likely or:]

baby moon elf's spotted his very first hollyphant.

[There is such a pause before he responds. Little droplets of ink suggest he's tapping the paper several times over— torn, perhaps, between protesting that patronizing doting and his own growing horror.]

~~im not~~

~~do not~~

[Another pause.]

What is a hollyphant.

[Pause. He circles Astarion's drawing and (somewhat grudgingly) adds:]

Yes. It's wearing a hat. It's drinking and wearing a hat and flying. and talking about a case. It's talking.

Oh

oh no, really?

Oh that's not a good sign, then. It definitely shouldn't be flying or talking.

Are you feverish? Are your fingers shaking?

Did Talindra tell you to rest when you left her side?

Edited 2023-11-30 02:58 (UTC)

[>:)]

Joking~

They're celestial creatures, my love. Officially: servants of the heavens and divine heralds for all those gods devoted to the cause of goodness and light.

Academically: the reigning hypothesis is that they're spirits like the ones you know back home, only shaping the way we see them for a more....friendly conjugality between planes.

[Hm. Call it a hunch, but he's starting to imagine Leto puffing up like a barnhouse cat: hair standing on end, ears pinned back, green eyes bright and wild.]

You don't like it?

[Frankly, it isn't an inaccurate portrait. He isn't being so obvious as to be rude, but at the same time, it's hard not to see how he stares. The damned thing keeps bobbing up and down on wings that don't look nearly strong enough to support it, and that's to say nothing of how it's slurping down alcohol . . . he might actually try to forget seeing it drink, though time will tell if he can manage it.]

No.

[It's a blunt answer that stands for a few seconds.]

it's a spirit that's also an elephant with wings that floats around despite the fact said wings should not carry its bulk, going around solving cases and talking about how much it wants to get drunk for the rest of the week. it wears a hat. it wears a HAT and has a PIPE and it's gone through two bottles of wine already.

and no one questions this? no one thinks this odd? this is just how your world works? miniature elephants fly around solving mysteries and getting drunk and I am meant to simply accept it?

[Understand: he isn't hysterical. It's not as if he's getting worked up, or at least not visibly to anyone but Astarion. But there's so much that's strange here. There are so many things he's learned to adapt to, from his own magic to the strangeness of looking up and seeing Selûne and her tears instead of the familiar glow of Satina and her twin. There's ten thousand more sentient beings than just the set four he's used to; there's all kinds of politics and holidays and cultural customs he's never heard of. There's languages to learn and dangers to get used to, devils and demons, psychotic squidmen and the goblins that hunt them, and Leto has adapted, he has, but—

This is just too much. This is what breaks him. A goddamn miniature elephant that's more rotund than Montressor floating around, yammering on and on about a case that it's just closed. It's too much. It's too fucking weird. He can't. He can't! That's it.]

it's frowned, i assume, to kill such beasts.

[He's joking, sort of. Kind of.]

[A year and a half ago he'd have barked out something bitter about broodmothers, blights, abominations and nugs, meeting irritation beat for snappish beat.

As it stands?

He only laughs. Warm and doting, and nothing Leto can hear when Astarion's pen nib funnels its way back towards thicker paper.]

Only if you get caught.

[Wink wink— ]

And the Blue Wraith's not exactly wraith-y these days, from what I hear.

Then his companion ought to utilize his own talents and aid him.

[Even irritable and biting, he won't use the word vampiric where someone else might read it. But fine, fine: there's silence for a little while. Long enough that perhaps the topic seems to be dropped; perhaps they even chatter about unrelated things, little stories that mean nothing. But sooner or later:]

it keeps staring at me astarion

oh

[Soft oh. Playful oh. The other sort of thing that doesn't come through in text format like the warning that it is unless one knows it well.

To which: Leto probably does.]

Maybe she's sweet on you.

[After all, who could blame her?]

that isn't funny

i'm not going to save you the next time montressor decides you as a bat is a fun new toy

[But then, rather belatedly:]

how did you know it was wearing a hat

how do you know its a she

do you KNOW it?

Edited 2023-12-02 01:59 (UTC)

[You're going to save him because you don't want him dead, and you both know it, little wolf.

Although.... ]

If it's who I suspect? Very well. Very well indeed.

[By reputation only but— who's counting? And all those ruffled feathers do so fascinate.

Leto's, that is.

Not the creature they're discussing.]

Valeria the hollyphant: divine drunkard of Baldur's Gate, exiled by the celestial bodies themselves.

Shall I say more, or would you rather growl into the book for a little while first? Really lean into the aura of Ataashi when a bin's set out of place.

[Gods, now that Astarion's said it, he does feel that way. It's the same growling wariness, the same fierce defensiveness born of uncertainty and shock . . . he presses his lips together, half-expecting to feel them peeling back away from elvish fangs.]

you were the same with nugs

[No, he wasn't, but that's neither here nor there.]

tell me more. why is it exiled?

[Leto, it's a person, not an animal, don't call her it.]

I was the same with Chantry sisters, too.

Sometimes templars.

Always Magisters.

[ —ah.

Now there's a thought that strikes him right beneath his breastbone.]

And Cole.

[How he hated that little spirit. Right up until he loved him like a friend. The question of how that memory's evaded him for so long— he doesn't know. Probably just the way of the Veil or his splintered mind, or just the turbulence of coming home, distracting with the buzz of making certain they were safe in unsafe places.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Anyway:]

I also hated halla, and believe you me, that one never sat well with the elves that wanted to take me in.

[Maybe— maybe— he's having a little bit of a moment of sentimentality-borne camaraderie here. Enough to make it gentle, the segue.

Don't dare say a word.]

She, you riled little thing, was shunned for raising a call of alarm that one of the holiest of high beings, the Archangel Zariel— beloved by all the Heavens themselves— was in fact as twisted as they come. And I don't know about your life experience, but as far as I've ever seen, the loftier the court, the nastier the backlash against any and all accusations.

Particularly when the one sounding the alarm is a nasty little daydrinking ball of fur and feathers who couldn't deduce her way out of a wet sack, from what I hear.

She and the city guards sent so many innocents to jail it's a wonder there's only a handful of running jokes about it.

well

flapping jokes, I suppose.

Edited 2023-12-02 20:31 (UTC)

[There's plenty to say to that. Zariel, the one from the Hells, that's a question he wants to ask (his education on Toril and her major players growing, but still rough around the edges). How did she realize what was happening and yet is still such an incompetent, that might be another. How the hell do you know it's a she is a pressing third— but just as it's always been, nothing extraneous ever matters half as much as Astarion does. That includes a riled, snarling mood.]

Cole?

~~He was~~

It was

[Penning before your time feels wrong when it was Leto— Fenris— who had always been there first. Was there all along, in fact, only wandering the world in ways that Astarion's quickly learned it hurts to think about. Mostly because if he spends too long rolling that notion around inside his mind, the scenarios only twist into the ugliest possibilities imaginable: held captive and tortured by Venatori before managing to break free; lured in by Varania for her gain; injured and amnesiatic, not knowing who he is or where he belongs.

Of course admitting to his lover that he'd spent time dealing with a demon stuck outside the Fade is, erm....potentially almost as unpleasant, so there's that.]

how should I put it

[Eh. The truth as best as he can name it seems good enough, clumsy as it is.]

A spirit. Ghost. Thing.

Loitered around the Gallows early on in the form of a young boy, unable to go back to the Fade. Also only visible to some. Knew a few of your friends, too, actually. Had quite a lot to say about Varric.

I spent so many weeks trying to shunt the little thing. Hissed up a storm. Bared my fangs and threatened it like you wouldn't believe.

Even ran away, once. Though in my defense, that was before I knew it wasn't alive.

[In truth, his very first thought is an exhausted one. Of course the demon knows Varric, for everyone knows Varric. He still half-expects to hear his name thrown about whenever they meet anyone new; why wouldn't Talindra or Gale know him, after all? And that goes for spirits. It must have happened after they parted ways, which is . . . a bit of a lonely thought, frankly. That Varric had hung around Kirkwall long enough to befriend this spirit, but was still gone by the time Leto returned . . . ah, but best not to dwell there.

And as for the second thought . . . mmph. He frowns down at the notebook, grateful he's time enough to compose his reaction before replying. Of course Astarion knows his views on demons, and it's an unpleasant shock to hear that he's befriended one— which, indeed, might explain why this has never come up before.]

What changed, then? You had [Ah, a pause, and he begins to write the correct reaction before crossing it out,] a certain viewpoint of it. What made that shift?

Nothing, actually. [Hm.] I still couldn't stand the fact that it didn't even have to exert itself to look right through me whenever it wanted, seeing everything I felt or suffered. [Making him relive it in the echoed feedback of it, sure as that tadpole had ever done.] Even my feelings about you.

It never sat well with me.

But he wanted to live. Aspired to be a person, rather than a monster confined to the shadows after dying in a cell, forgotten. I suppose it was self-serving in the end. Possibly dangerously so. [If Cole hadn't been— well if he hadn't been Cole]

Still, I'd argue even an odd creature like that's better than dealing with Valeria.

Is she still looking at you, my darling?

[He doesn't miss the change from it to he and back again. It hurt me, it made me relive through my worst moments, it reminded me of a love I thought for so long was unrequited (and gods, but Leto's heart pangs softly at that, a soft reminder to be tender to his beloved tonight). But then . . . he wanted to be a person, and what happened there, that Astarion thought such a thing even remotely worth entertaining?

But perhaps it comes from the notion that Rifters, themselves, were spirits. Leto had never put any stock into such a theory; indeed, the only reason he remembers it is because Astarion had been afraid. But perhaps therein lies some form of sympathy. Some aching bit of echo: this might have been me.

And it wasn't. Isn't. And they've never held truck with pity, either of them, but . . . ]

Yes. [It's deeply discomfiting, actually.] Do not change the subject.

What do you mean, "dying in a cell, forgotten"? He was an echo of a memory of a mage, then?

[A distraction from current hollyphant shaped distress? A vested interest in his story? Concern that Astarion was so careless in his fledgling freedom? Astarion can't guess with what little context he's given— limitations of writing, as it were— but all the same, he wasn't expecting that twist back towards the subject.

Less the fact that it's seemingly so....earnest.

Is he homesick, his amatus? Or is he just beginning to find understanding in a Weave that loves him so.]

yes?

maybe

I think so

[Scribbles upon scribbles: Hells' teeth, what was he? What do you call something you hate and yet want fiercely to be fine. Safe. Happy— if twisted things could ever be.]

I really don't know.

At one point, it seems within the realm of possibility: he held— memories. Things he showed me, in spite of how I spurned him. A lonely little mage in a locked room that died begging for salvation.

But the creature I knew wasn't that boy, of course. It knew it too, in fact, despite its aspirations to become said boy. [Draw one distinction here, cut another one there; it, he, I, him— what stranger is a vampire to paring down the difference between life and whatever misshapen existence comes after?]

After that, I couldn't turn it away anymore. I know it was stupid choice, but

I saw hope in him.

For myself.

[Oh, and suddenly Leto wishes he hadn't brought it up. Or, no, that's not true. He's glad he did. He's glad to know this about his Astarion, and he wants to know more— but gods, he wishes they weren't apart for this, for he wants nothing more than to gather Astarion up in his arms right now. A lonely little mage in a locked room that died begging for salvation, and it's not . . . it's not that Leto has such pity for the mages of his world. Don't get it twisted. He isn't some bleeding heart advocate, his ways and outlook suddenly and miraculously reversed just because he himself has magic. The source of his aching empathy begins and ends with Astarion (Astarion locked away in some lightless place howling in agony for a master that might have forgotten him; Astarion begging the gods for a hero that would never come, pleading in the darkness that ate it all up and never once spat out anything save pain in return).

But maybe buried beneath all that, so deep-down that Leto does not want to truly acknowledge it, there is a sliver of pity for that mage, too. Cole, he thinks to himself, and does not wonder that he will try to remember the name.]

Yes.

[That's too vague, he realizes in the next moment.]

Not that it was stupid. But that you saw yourself in him— I can understand why. And why, too, you would befriend him. Why it would feel important to befriend him, perhaps.

[It. A ghostly little spirit that longed for more . . . a spirit of what, Leto wonders. Pity? Compassion? Grief? Certainly not revenge. Not vengeance, and for the first time in a long time, he thinks about Anders. About his own demon, and all the ways in which it urged him to fulfill what it imagined he wanted . . . and what now? Are they still bound together? Is Anders still alive? Or is Justice wandering the plains of the Fade, echoing Anders' voice as it roams aimlessly to and fro . . .

Mmph.]

Tell me what you mean by hope.

Hope that you could be saved? Or that someone would care?

[It's too blunt in text, too cold, and he hopes Astarion understands his meaning. There is no shame in such a thing; he asks not out of judgement, but quiet understanding.

And then, after a pause:]

It wasn't stupid, Astarion.

[Thank you.

What he'd say if he were there, or Leto here. Sensed only like the absent thought it is that twitches in his fingertips.

And ends there before it hits the nib of his quill.

It's one thing to whisper I need you, I love you— everyone says that. Plenty of people say it without ever meaning it, and for centuries Astarion was one of them, trying it on like a blouse to see how it'd fit. If it'd satisfy. If it warmed him. Some things you just don't want to leave a trace. Don't want to see the proof of, now or ever.

Breathed out into open air? It doesn't scar.

Writing it down makes it confirmation eternal. There whenever he or Leto crack open that book to look back on their conversations: thank you stamped down in response and it might as well be yes, I was weak. Yes, I was stupid. Scared. Yes, I was lonely and frightened and still can't stop from buckling in the dark. Whatever you imagine on kneejerk instinct, you're right.

And yet it's unavoidable, isn't it? Like the topic well at hand, or the little ghost by Kirkwall's docks, or the memories he fights so hard just to forget, running doesn't change a thing.

He learned that early, after all.

Gods know they both did.]

That I could live again.

That much in the way of cursed princes and childish fantasies, a monster might just go back to being a person, if given half a chance.

[Tsk.]

Riftwatch had a knack for bringing me back to my senses.

[He will tear Riftwatch apart if ever they go back.

All of them. Every single one. Every wretched little scientist and arrogant Rifter who thinks they know better; every smug Orlesian and idiotic wretch who thinks that they were doing Astarion a favor by calling him little more than spirit, ghost, whore to be pushed into laying on his back so they could call it spying, oh, he'll tear them apart. He'll burn them alive. He'll slaughter them one by one on the ashes of Anders' madness, and it will not be some roaring rampage of revenge, no, he will do it coldly. Methodically. Savoring their terror and ignoring their pleas, until at last the halls run scarlet with their blood and all their records are destroyed—

In his hand, the quill creaks warningly. Leto blinks down at it, realizing belatedly how tightly he's gripped it.

And it's a fantasy, of course. He will not tear it apart for the same reason he did not the first time; the same reason he and Astarion drifted gently but deliberately away from the organization, allowing themselves to disappear rather than draw attention to an abrupt departure. But what was good sense in Thedas is cowardice in Toril, and there is nothing that sparks rage faster than hearing Astarion speak so miserably.]

They did not know of what they spoke, and the things they feigned having authority upon were no more than a childish attempt at control that endlessly fell flat.

[It's curt and cold. His handwriting is normally a methodically neat thing, precise to a fault; now it's blocky and thick, every letter all but carved into delicate paper.]

They did not bring you back to your senses. They cut you down to feel better about their own pathetic lives, whether that was because you were an elf or a Rifter or simply not obedient enough to suit their whims.

[Another pause.]

Do you think that still? That you are more monster than person?

[He can't see it. Can't sense it. There's no shift throughout the Weave that grabs him by the head or heart and shakes with transferred pain. Aside from little blotwork scratches and a willingness to circle old scars (barely two years somehow equating to old these days— gods, as if freedom works in dog years now that he's grown used to it: so short-lived and fragile that even the smallest spans are milestones rivaling greater swaths, trouncing decades at a time), there's really nothing to suggest that this isn't one more passed-off bit of grimness between two things already mired in it.

Honestly, they've been steeped in darkness so long they might as well be two fish talking about water each and every time it breaks— there's nothing there worth dwelling on they haven't picked apart before.

But then go figure it's minutiae like those little patchwork scrawls that Astarion's well-trained in. Most of all when it comes to Leto.

And like that, he has his answer.]

You know, I've met a lot of monsters over the years who live just like everyone else. Governing property and dressing better than you'd ever expect, knowing what they really are. They own pets, talk sweet, have reputable standing and oh so many friends, not to mention vault stores that'd make your very pretty head spin if you caught even a glimpse.

Even in Thedas, it wasn't really different.

[Merchant princes. Tevene Magisters. Hightown. Orlais. The Chantry.]

So if a handsome wretch from a fallen bloodline happened to find a lover, make a home with him atop a tavern, adopt two pups and only drink small sips of scrounged-up blood by moonlight, well, if you ask me, it wouldn't change a bit of what he truly was.

But

[But....]

No.

Or if I am, then not by even half as much as I used to fear back then, when the world was so new it might as well have been blinding.

[The stories get it wrong. They always do.]

I know you. You wouldn't have followed me here otherwise. And you damned well wouldn't have stayed.

So if I can't trust in my own judgment, then I trust yours.

pre-raph but *not by much*

now imagines Leto scribbling this at the bar table tyvm

he ABSOLUTELY IS, staring in quiet horror

AU timeline where Raphael sways Leto for promising to get rid of all hollyphants

leto like hahaha no .............unless?

pride demon arc new speedrun any %

2/2

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pre-raph but not by much