illithidnapped | INBOX II

Well there's your probl~~e~~~~~~

[O h

Here's the start of a joke: a whore gets flustered by some rough and tumble upstart disinclined to speak anything but the truth as it comes. No taking back that smear of ink now, but with luck, Fenris will never open his communication tome to this page ever again.

Varric. Hawke.]

I'd assume neither of them were the sort to mount inanimate objects or suck on toes, then.

[Of course he notices the ink blot, for he was so deliberate in choosing those words. Gratifying isn't quite the right word for what he feels when he sees it, but . . . it's something to have the weight of that comment acknowledged, even inadvertently.]

no

[Well—]

varric had a disturbing amount of fondness for fingering his crossbow, but i suspect that was a joke. probably. and hawke kept her sex life private, for which i was frankly grateful.

if anyone, isabela might have— but if she did, she never told me of it. her preference was to tease out innuendos and coy jokes rather than get into details— which was enjoyable in its own right. and when we slept together, it was

[Hm.]

thrilling. vigorous. but straightforward in that regard.

[What was flustered becomes—

Astarion doesn't know.

Sharp and needling, maybe. Like a buzz of uncomfortable static across his back teeth, up into his nape and the top of his skull. Why, is a mystery to him. He's never been uncomfortable before. Never been particularly prudish about others' intimate partners.

But there's something in those words that catches in a way that's more trenchant than bemusement on its own. A little more prone to sticking.]

Now she sounds a treat.

[Defies the heaviness sitting in his stomach. ]

Love a creature that knows the art of enigmatic play— a rare talent in any world, I've noticed.

oh, yes. she was a rare talent in many respects, and the ones anyone least expected most of all. you would have liked her a great deal, i think— she was very good at misdirection. flirting and dropping innuendos in order to make her opponents thing her little more than barroom slut— and then viciously proving them wrong.

[Not unlike you is the comparison he means to make, but wisely chooses not to. Not after penning barroom slut; it's hard to take it as a compliment after that, though Fenris assuredly means it as such.]

it made it hard to tell when she was serious about her exploits, though. which is how she preferred it.

still, i cannot call it educational. not in that sense, anyway.

[He probably would have liked her. Fenris is hardly wrong, if that's the impression she starkly left behind. Flirtatious, likely brighter than a star—

Hah.]

Oh?

In what sense was it, then? Don't tell me you were made one of those misdirected conquests.

Well, yes.

[That's a joke at his own expense, for he adds swiftly:]

misdirected, no. but a conquest? oh, yes. she approached me, and sooner or later, we tumbled into bed together. it was purely sex, which she made clear from the start— and which was a relief for me at the time, i admit. but it was straightforward, with very little variety in terms of kink or fetish.

[A pause, and then, a little carefully:]

she was my first.

[There's such a lengthy pause there, that for a time Fenris might be forgiven for thinking Astarion ran off and disappeared— his quill instead loitering above wax-skinned parchment, chancing the start of an inkblot once. Twice. Never quite connecting.

Ever? Is the question he can't ask, because he knows— or at the very least suspects there was another at the front of the line before her. Part and parcel for any slave with a pretty face (and sometimes not even that: what rough features fail to offer, youth, or a strong set of arms, or warmth alone might do for those with power on their mind).

But it digs in his craw like a splinter between set teeth.]

In freedom? [Writes itself before he can stop it.]

[There's no one else in the world he'd say this to, Fenris thinks, staring down distantly at the question. Isabela might have guessed long ago, but if she did, she had the wisdom to never bring it up. Even now, he isn't sure how he would have answered her. But not Hawke, not Varric— no one, for no one else would understand.

No one save somehow who had also gone through it.]

Yes.

It was

[Hm.]

Overwhelming. In every way you can imagine, it was overwhelming, but I do not regret it.

[Another pause, and then:]

It took me years before I was ready. I think we were in our third or fourth year of friendship when she began to flirt, and even then, it was a slow process.

Is it something you wish to try someday?

[No. No, he hadn't meant it that way. (Had he....?) —No. Don't be daft, Astarion.

Or at least don't be a cock.]

What, sex?

Yes.

~~You would have little trou~~

[Has he overstepped? Was this too much? Surely not— and yet something in Fenris writhes in agonized embarrassment for reasons he can't quite name. This is too much. This is too much too fast, he oughtn't have even brought the subject up— for it's one thing to ask that of a bodyguard, but a slave whose primary use was prostitution? Maker, he wouldn't blame Astarion for never wanting to touch a single soul again, and that's to say nothing of how objectified he must feel.

There's such a large ink blot forming before he writes again.]

Think nothing of the question if you do not wish to answer. It has not been so long, I know, and[...] as I said, Isabela was overwhelming even in theory.

[Hhhhhhhh]

Edited 2024-10-21 04:10 (UTC)

[He can almost sense that discomfort coming off the page in ripples, starting from the dead center of that inkblot. Funny, that his own trepidation left no trace where it could, and yet Fenris' is right there, front and center and precious enough to rot out every last one of Astarion's viperish fangs.

He's already hopelessly done for as it stands.]

Do you imagine I haven't yet?

Precious pup, it's fine. You can ask anything you like of me.

Doubly so for sex.

[Years later, when they've long since learned one another, Leto will laugh at his own folly. He'll know to read the come-on for what it truly is: a purring late night proposition that offers him an easy way in or out. He'll scoff at at his own fluster and the way he tripped over his own paws in his eagerness not offend— and he won't regret it, not really. Not when it was done out of care and concern.

But for now, what Fenris thinks is that Astarion has sensed his own discomfort and is overcompensating to make him feel better. That whether or not he is actually comfortable with it remains secondary; that training and conditioning have long since kicked in, whispering that offering a flirtatious statement is far easier than being raw and honest.

And that's fine. Fenris won't ever fault him for that. But nor does he want to make it worse. And yet—]

You have?

[The written equivalent of blurted out, his pen striking fast.]

when?

with whom?

(Hells' teeth. You really were flustered weren't you?

And here I thought you were straighter than a templar's rigid cock. Tsk. I suppose it's true what they all say: hindsight really is comparable to a beholder's gaze.)

--

[Well that's unexpected. Is it worry that has ink dashing over parchment, or the uneasiness of a former slave that needed years to find comfort in carefully applied companionship?]

Oh all right, fine. It was foreplay mostly. Just after my liberation from quarantine so

[Hm.]

yesterday or the day before? Sometime in there. I don't think it counts if they come from a hand job and pass out barely five minutes later.

No one noteworthy, cross my heart. Just some local riffraff with a good amount of coin in their pocket. Same as I was working towards tonight, as a matter of fact.

Though I like this better.

[That's— hm. Fenris frowns down at the paper, unsure how he feels about that— and unsure of how much of it is even his business to comment upon. Astarion is an adult, after all, and it's not Fenris' business to question how he earns money or what he chooses to do.

. . . but even so . . .]

I do too.

[Genuinely meant, if not distractedly written.]

did you want to do it?

i have contacts in the coterie, if you would prefer another line of work.

[Slight pause; an elf is buffering.] Did I want to do what? Seduce passing strangers for the sake of making myself rich in a world void of resources save your own?

[On second thought, scratch that. There's yet another nagging something tugging at the borders of otherwise pleasant awareness, and whatever it is, he knows better than to indulge.]

The local thieves? Wouldn't they just take a cut of my profits?

most likely, yes. but

[He hesitates. He has never been good at this, he knows. He was awful with Orana and it hasn't gotten much better; he never knows how to strike that perfect chord between sympathetic and allowing another person their own free will. Maybe there is no perfect chord; maybe that's why he always snarled whenever Hawke tried to find it.

Each word comes more slowly now, jotted down as Fenris tries to organize his thoughts.]

there are many things you could do in this world. you have lighter fingers than half the coterie, not to mention greater intelligence. and i would not see you sleep with others out of necessity for sheer lack of opportunity

[Ugh. That sounds so . . . clinical.]

i fight for money often. when there are no jobs to find and no one wants to hire an elvish mercenary, i go to the fighting pits and earn my supper. and i do not mind it, though i use skills i learned as a slave. but it is a choice i make freely, knowing there are other ways to make money.

but you need not put your own skills to work if you don't want to.

[Ugh.]

[Its kind focus. The sort of you could do better that isn't rife with a touch of indigestible poor thing. And while Astarion might hate (such an understatement) other slaves, he's come to know he doesn't hate Fenris. In fact he's beginning to doubt he ever could.

(Dangerous, the influence that much fondness holds.)

Still, the compliment only carries so much at this late hour, when it's easy to fall back on old tricks— agency too new a concept to stick properly from dusk till dawn.]

I liked it more when we were hellbent on discussing strange fetishes, rather than the wide, less enchanting measure of what my options are. The delight of planning that takes into account a war where we might find ourselves at risk should the losing side go belly up. Not to mention our disadvantage in having pointy ears, few allies, and barely any coin.

The superstitions I've already noted about my anchor shard or whatever they call it— thwarted thanks to your gloves.

[Theres a pause, and it lingers gently before committing dark ink to paper.]

I'll consider your offer. [Is as close to gratitude as he can muster when it bubbles up like bile otherwise. Sour as the urge to run. To bare teeth. To cry— which he won't allow.

But....maybe there's a point there. Something worth mulling when all's been said and done. Maybe he won't sleep tonight for thinking on it again and again, trying to discern the difference between survival and desire.

Trying to follow if he's ever had a difference to begin with at all.

And now there's a spot on the paper. A large one, brought on by his damned resting quill when he wasn't paying attention— fucking Hells.

It smudges barely when he swipes at it, but it's too late now. The damned thing's stuck in.]

Do you still see her? Your wild temptress.

[Frankly, it's a far tamer response than Fenris himself would have given so long ago. And thank god, he knows how to back off. He still doesn't love the thought of Astarion sleeping with others for money (or for the chance to steal from them), but it isn't his choice. Leave it, he orders himself sharply, and yet stares down at that blot for far longer than he should, trying to decipher its meaning.

But no: leave it, he tells himself again. There's nothing good that can come of badgering Astarion, and the last thing he wants to do is come across like some preachy Chantry brother eager to save someone from the sin of sex. The only thing he allows himself is a sentence, small and penned next to I'll consider your offer.]

There is no time limit.

[There. An endlessly open offer, and they can move on.]

No. I have not seen her for many years, but the last I heard she had gone back to sailing the seas as a raider. She even calls herself an admiral, though I do not know how true that may be— the legitimacy of the position, anyway, for I have no doubt she has the cheek to title herself that regardless.

For her sake, I hope the ships she raids are less perilous than they once were. Have you heard much about the Qunari uprising here? She began it by stealing— and losing— one of their most revered religious tomes.

It is as it should be. She always longed for the sea, and living for nearly a decade in Kirkwall was akin to caging a bird.

[A pause, and then:]

I doubt I will ever see her again.

[And it is what it is, of course, but it's not hard to hear the faintest shadow of grief in those words.]

['As it should be?'

His first, and a woman he pens about having come to him after such a vast expanse of years (oh, Astarion, hypocrite and fool in blinded measure), and all that comes of it is a resigned kiss of never again?

What is it that has him by the throat? What is it here, in these frail seconds lodged beneath the punctuation of a hideous stained blot that makes written letters look more marring than the void he'd left behind? Scowling without meaning to, lip curled idly in disgust. A conquest, he'd said. His first, he'd said. And as useless as sex has only ever been aside from living through another night with the carrot rather than the stick, Astarion knows something of firsts, now. Of the irreversible anchorhold it has. (A flicker of something, erased. Pretty words spoken hundreds of years ago, scrubbed clean not by Cazador— not directly, no— but by Astarion's own hands. Pushed away.)

Drop it, reason warns, citing the obvious occurences of less than one full minute prior, where Fenris settled back to grant fair peace in waters Astarion couldn't navigate. Change the subject. Play it sweet.

And yet he can't.]

Rotheshit it's as it should be.

[Oh. He hadn't expected that, and for a long moment Fenris blinks down at his journal, unsure how to take it. It's not wrong. Certainly it isn't, for if things were as they should be, no one would have left. Anders wouldn't have blown up the Chantry; the others wouldn't have had to scatter for their lives, and things would be as they were. He would have long since introduced Astarion to his companions, and they would have eagerly taken him under their collective wings as one more misfit ready to tag along on whatever madness Hawke had found herself embedded into . . .

Or maybe not. Maybe it was always destined to reach a boiling point: mages and templars, Qunari and Kirkwall . . . maybe Hawke has always led a life that discourages any kind of permanency no matter how hard she tries.]

Why do you say that?

[He knows why, sort of, but he wants to hear it. There's a part of him that's ever raw and wounded that longs for affirmation and assurance, and it's so rare he indulges it.]

It is perhaps not as it should be, but . . . say, then, it is what was destined to happen. She was miserable on land, and none of us were meant to last. Not Hawke nor any of our companions . . . I should have known there was a time limit.

[Lucky they're not speaking. Lucky this comes through the scratching of a bony little nib soaked through with enchanted ink. It makes him sound more reasonable, perhaps. Less incensed.

Though context swears he's not.]

Because she left.

Why would it ever be fated?

A boat can go anywhere. The freedom she sought out isn't solely the ability to run— it's the very same freedom to come back. Or at the very least to track you down.

[He doesn't know how to answer. All the things he can think to say (will you stay? would you have been different?) are either too childish or too absurd to even remotely consider penning. It's everything his lonely heart has ached for and nothing he's ever allowed himself, and now that he's faced with it . . .]

~~have you~~ ~~would you~~ ~~where~~

I am[. . .] used to people leaving. and I have found it is a foolish endeavor to expect they will ever return.

[Every word slowly written and heavily weighed.]

does it upset you?

Yes I'm upset.

[You stayed because the shard wouldn't let me leave. You abandoned tertiary freedom to shackle yourself to an organization that can't organize itself to save its life beyond not drowning in an ocean of a war. You chose me.]

A peerless vintage is a beautiful thing, darling. Lust for it for ages like air and it'll be a grand day when you feel it in your hands at last. But a gift like that is best shared, I've found. Even if all you offer is a sip.

You deserved better.

Edited 2024-10-25 22:16 (UTC)

[Again, the emotion washes over him, drowning him; again he stares at the paper, every word overwhelming and baffling and perfect. You deserved better, and when has anyone ever said that to him? When has he ever even said it to himself? It's not that no one cared. It's not that Hawke and Varric and Isabela didn't think he deserved better than the life he'd had before— but there's such a difference, isn't it, between someone sighing over your life in enslavement, and someone lamenting the fact you'd been abandoned . . .

And he doesn't know what to say to that. Truly he doesn't. The quill hovers in the air for so long that by the time he goes to write, the ink's already dried and he has to get more. But what finally emerges, slow and careful, is:]

Perhaps I have found it.

[He doesn't know if he could say that aloud, but the written word offers a little more ability to be vulnerable.]

I do not begrudge Isabela her leaving— at least, not enough to have it linger in my heart. But I will not say there is no bitterness nor grief when I think of what we had. For any of my friends who once lived here. The city is full of ghosts for me, and there are days when I loathe it.

But you make it worthwhile to stay.

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