illithidnapped | INBOX II

[Therein lies the real reason why Astarion truly favors Jenevelle or Shadowheart— whatever she goes by now— and has been for a while (all the injuries she'd mended; the care she took ensuring Leto not only survived the worst of his wounds, but without lingering scars to speak of—) yet his siblings were already upon them once. He won't make the mistake of baring his sole weakness to anyone that might take advantage of it.

Not even when speaking to said weakness directly.

(His smile is overt. He's living for the teasing—

And for the way he's being bitten.)]

Wyll doesn't blind me.

[A stop-start series of ink blots are the only bits of evidence for the war his mind is currently waging with his cock. Until finally:]

Allow me the pleasure of settling between your thighs tonight and I will show you just how deftly I’ve learned how to blind you, whether it be through tongue, prick, or blade itself.

But you will not distract me. We have half the inn left to go, and I wish to know your thoughts before I lose the chance. Gale, Karlach . . . Zevlor. I like him a great deal— more than most here. He is clever and experienced— a valuable ally, and one far more versed in tactics than I thought we might find. We have already come up with more than a few plans on ways to enter the palace.

Promise, little pup?

[Oh he hopes that tail is wagging.]

That he is clever. As is young Wyll, of course, but the boy has such a shine in his eyes still. [Something the world has not yet taken from him.] You always struck me more as Drizzt Do'urden, or Zevlor; withdrawn and nobly brooding, bearing the whole world's weight upon your shoulders.

As for Gale, he's....

[A pause.]

He's fine.

[It's Leto's turn to snort now, loud enough that the genasi walking in front of him looks mildly offended.]

Oh? Just fine?

[Be mean, Astarion. Be petty. Vindicate all his teenage rage and seething resentment.]

[ . . . but then he goes back, rereading that message, and adds:]

Will you fluster if I tell you I find it sweet you compare me to your Drizzt?

Not just sweet. Flattering. A compliment whose value I did not know the first time it was offered.

[That is, somehow, the absolute worst part of all of this: in growing fonder, he can't immediately summon up vitriol from the depths of his mistrusting soul. They're kinder creatures, even the worst of them— not you, Mizora— and they care enough to endure his snappish biting more than his siblings ever did across the span of two hundred endlessly long years.

His pen taps paper— then withdraws, then— ]

Oh I don't know, darling. He doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out anymore unless he lifts one of his stupid blunt-edged fingers and coughs out one of those signature 'ah ah ah's or 'ahem's.

And the same could be said of Karlach too, who is— in spite of the depths of her incessant pestering— quite adorable in her own way. Earnest, I suppose.

They're both too much most days, and if you tell any of them this I'll cut holes in your armor, but

well

they're not so terrible to exist near anymore.

—no

[Y e s.

In fact he's flustering right now. Twitching through his ears at the words your Drizzt within this context.

(Leto really is his own version of that shining, wondrous star some part of him had fawned over long, long ago ~~and definitely not anymore, that was a childhood fancy, thank you very much, and he is mature and grown and worldly now. So worldly.~~ And he is struck by the wonder of that realization every time it flickers to the forefront of his mind.)]

And you still don't understand its value, either. The fourth novel in Do'urden's Night of the Drow: A Heroic Tale series is still collecting dust on our tavern shelf, I ought to mention.

Edited 2025-11-22 03:20 (UTC)

[They're not so terrible to exist near anymore, and Leto smiles to himself as he reads it. It makes him glad, it truly does. Astarion need not repeat the same steps Leto himself had all those years ago, for he has no doubt his husband would continue to grow and heal regardless of companions or lack thereof— but there's something a little wonderful about being among people you love and trust. Or, if not that, at least might learn to someday.

Even if they annoy you to no end some days.

But he won't say so. Pointing it out will only make Astarion snap, and anyway, anything Leto can think to say only sounds patronizing. I'm glad you're accepting them in your life or you deserve to be loved both feel too heavy-handed, and so he simply thinks them.]

Is that the smutty one or the one where there's a lot of pirates?

Is the cat girl in it?

[First of all, Catti-brie isn't a fucking tabaxi.

Honestly, he does like Drizzt stories. The trouble is, he likes them a lot better when it's Astarion describing them and Leto can curl up against him and sort of doze as he listens. Actually sitting down and reading them . . . well, it's not nearly the same, and anyway, they're so goddamn long.]

Anyway, I am in the midst of reading it. Simply because you had two hundred years of literacy does not mean it comes so easy to all of us.

[HE WAS AN ILLITERATE SLAVE ASTARION it's like you don't even respect his trauma.......]

Edited 2025-11-22 03:49 (UTC)

I dare you to say that in front of Gale.

Or his cat.

[The first cat he's ever met he does not care for. Why is she so strait laced and prone to tattling?? If Astarion wanted a mother about peering over his shoulder, then he wouldn't have gotten murdered.]

Gods. It's the one with the romantic subplot and sweeping sense of—

I'm sorry did you just

'cat girl?'

his girlfriend

[Just in case Astarion might not remember a major character— or historic figure or quite possibly currently still alive figure, it's hard to say, maybe he'd know if he read the other books.]

And I'll tell Gale and his fussy cat anything you please, so long as the reward is sweet enough.

You are a child.

[Kirboface.jpg]

[He starts to write out a child you, and then scribbles it out. No.]

it's a strange practice to name your child Cat in a world in which there are, in fact, cat people in this world

it's like naming your child Elvendork.

[LETO NO.]

IT IS NOT. CAT.

IT IS NOT CAT ANY MORE THAN MY NAME WOULD BE ASS AND YOU KNOW IT. ARE YOU ILLITERATE STILL?

[Don't think you're cute. Not even with dog ears will he let this stand, kadan!!!!]

Riled thing, don't say that aloud or your name will be Ass to the pups for the next month.

[And Leto will laugh himself sick at piping voices repeatedly chirping Ass, Ass, and Astarion will bite him until he dies, and then it'll be a whole thing.]

Read it aloud to me tonight. You can satisfy yourself with emphasizing her name anytime it comes up— but I like those stories a great deal more when you read them to me. Even if his father was still the best character.

[Rip Zak he'll never be over your death.]

Is that what you're sore about?

[ Call it a truce that he's deliberately ignoring the looming danger of hearing 'ass' chirped over and over again in pup yip format, and making no mention of what a joy it might be to read to an audience that wags during all the best storyline beats.]

You liked his father best?

[It will be wagging up a storm tonight, and only partially for the most exciting parts. Give Toril this: it's given him remarkable insight into Ataashi's fits of wriggling joy whenever either of them come home.]

A weaponsmaster who fought through a society that disdained him, imparting his viewson his son and giving him hope to break free and forge a new path? Yes, I liked him best.

[Is that weird? Not that Leto identifies with him, no, but the fact they're discussing what was, by all accounts, a real person . . . then again, the man must have died more than a century ago. It's probably fine. It's just odd, that's all— especially when Fenris has experience with being turned into a literary character.]

I like Drizzt, too. I like a majority of them. But thusfar, he is the one I find the most interest in.

Are drow truly like this? Have you ever met any?

[There's Dal, of course, but she doesn't count.]

Edited 2025-11-23 22:14 (UTC)

He does ring a touch familiar, doesn't he?

[And give Toril this: it gave Astarion the joy of seeing just how similar his wolf and husband are.

~~And pups, too. But they won't talk about that.~~]

I've met....some.[A stricter some, in fact.] You wouldn't have liked them.

You don't even like Dal, although— [she doesn't count] that may not be entirely her fault so much as the eternal enthrallment. And the fact she tried to kill you and return me to her master.

Hard to say.

the attempted murder and kidnapping had something to do with it, yes. i may like her more in the aftermath, when all is said and done.

[If she survives. If Astarion deigns to spare her. If, if, if, but they won't go down that line of thought.]

Are they all so matriarchal, or is that exaggerated?

[A pause, and then:]

Tell me of her. Dal. And why I would like her, were circumstances different.

[Two different questions, and Astarion can ignore the one he doesn't want to answer.]

Edited 2025-11-24 07:49 (UTC)

Not exaggerated in the slightest, actually. It's as if someone took the Dalish and put them on enchanted steroids.

Granted I've never needed to interact with more than one or two traditionalists in my time— Baldurians are, as you may have noticed, a bit of a homogeneous melting pot: Dalyria herself was no different, for that matter. What vampirism didn't steal from her directly, I suspect her life here had already watered down.

She was demure in her comportment. Forthright above all else and yet decidedly self-assured when it came to her opinions even in her deference. When alone with her, one might've caught a glimpse of the researcher-et-healer she once was before Cazador found her: possessed of the clarity that no doubt served her in her life and utterly determined.

Still, unlike yours truly, she obeyed.

[For a moment he tries to picture it. Most of Astarion's siblings are hazy in his mind: smears of blood and fangs and glowing red eyes, differentiated only to keep track of which enemy was where. But Aurelia and Dalyria have the advantage of being seen, albeit through canine eyes— and so in turn it's a little easier to apply those traits to her.]

You speak of her with more fondness than the others.

[Or at least without the sneering derision that's colored his tone when speaking briefly of Petras or Violet. But then again, to know someone for centuries . . . he thinks of his own sister, and wonders if he'd be more or less fond of her if he had known her for such a stretch of time. Watching her in her grief and miserable triumphs, seeing how she would bend or break beneath their master's will . . . he does not know what he would feel, only that it wouldn't be mere apathy.]

Was she particularly servile, to make you note of her obedience? Few slaves ever have choices— and you and I especially not.

[No slave ever does, whether they hop-to willingly or not. And while Leto can think of more than a few reasons why Astarion might say so, still. Better to ask than guess blindly.]

[The discomfort is there, though he can't name it. Can't sense it. Blind again, that part of him that stutters when it looks back upon them— all of them, his siblings— and decides it doesn't want to gaze at them with kinder focus. With clarity or truth or— no. He doesn't know. Even after all this time, like a splinter lodged in deep beneath his nail beds, he'd have to dig to pull it free, and some weary, brittle part of him not yet healed enough by freedom—

Some part of him would rather live with that familiar discomfort.]

She was

[The lack of punctuation isn't a mistake; it's a pause. And it hangs in the air like the slow intake of breath.]

she was more inclined to care than the others, insofar as any of us could. She taught me a great deal about stitching myself back together again. And when I couldn't, she did it for me.

But let's be honest with ourselves, my darling, I was just another means to an end in that regard. A way to feel connected to the past she'd left behind, no doubt: tending to anyone in need was her modus vivendi, to spell it out in blunt Tevene, and she didn't dare take my side in anything so much as brokered for mere peace.

Peace, when we were always forced to be at war under his heel.

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this tag is called "fenris explores his limits on rpf"

SOFT WHEEZE

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