illithidnapped | INBOX II

[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.

A pragmatist, then. Loyal ultimately only to herself, as you all were forced to be.

[There are worse things to be. Stories love a rebel spitting in her master's face, but reality is often far less triumphant. Stay alive, that's the only real rule when you're a slave, and that must be ingrained all the deeper when you're ageless. He cannot blame her— or, no, that's not right. He could. He blames the others, after all, Petras and Violet and all the rest that squabbed and snarled and brutally betrayed his husband, and little matter that Astarion had done it right back to him. Leto's aching heart is not a fair thing, and he has never pretended otherwise.

But he can offer some grace to a creature that extended kindness, too. Whether or not it was a self-serving kindness doesn't matter, at least not to him. Dalyria, he thinks again, and fixates the name in his mind. Not an ally. Not a friend. But something, nebulous and better than the others.

Still: he hears that pain. The bitterness and the discomfort, and it isn't his place to urge Astarion into correcting it, now or ever. It isn't something that necessary needs correct. Maker knows Varania is still a source of confusion, and perhaps will always be.]

It may well be she was merely using you— I would be shocked if it was anything beyond that, especially under Cazador's heel. But even so: if it offered you a moment of respite or a little less pain throughout all those years of torment, then I am grateful to her.

[A moment, and then, a little lighter:]

A pity, though. Despite all that, I suspect I still win when it comes to sisters-in-law. At least she could heal you; all Varania could ever do was fuss and conjure sparks.

[He's laughing somewhere. One little squiggle on the page is indicative enough as a signal— halting, albeit different from before.

Brighter.]

Ah the joys of being an elder brother— always getting singed for our hard work.

[The faintest beat, and then:]

Was that the worst of what she did to you when you were children?

[The specification is important; he knows too much about the present timeline. Perhaps he ought to know her better in her facets.

Who she was, aside from who she became, for there was no doubt capacity in her.]

[There were days when Leto would bristle at the distinction. Not at Astarion, but at the mere concept of allowing Varania to be anything but her weakest and worst self. Even now, there are days like that. But distance and time both help, and while the wound has never healed, it isn't quite so raw as it was years ago.

Think of the girl, not the woman. Think of a small voice, high-pitched and sweet, not the low tenor of a voice aching in agony. Think of hot days and chilly nights, and a hand that so often found its way into his, sticky and sweaty and safe.]

She was a bossy thing, and our mother inclined to grant her wishes when she could. Most often that meant accompanying her into Minrathous, for she was fascinated by the marketplace. [Leto— and it really was Leto back then, skinny and dark-haired— had far different interests.] But having a guardian annoyed her as we grew older.

She ran from me once, annoyed at my rules, and I spent the day hunting for her. I searched endlessly, growing more desperate by the hour, until at last I had no choice but to head home— only to find her there, and our mother furious. I do not recall what lie Varania had told her— only that it was something that made it seem as though I abandoned her in favor of seeing the fighters in the pits.

That lingers. As does the pain from the thrashing she gave me.

[A small pause, and then:]

But I recall, too, her apology. She cried at me, and sooner or later I forgave her. She was still small, and easier to pity. Seven, perhaps, or eight, and I a boy of thirteen.

The only other incidents I remember are smaller, and not against me. Her tears when she scraped her knee or dropped the ragged piece of fabric she called a doll into the mud; both times expecting me to fix it. The knee was easier than the mud. Picking fights with the other children and then running behind me when they attempted to retaliate— and how happily I would take the chance to wrestle and fight with them.

Not unlike your sister, I suspect she sought power to survive. And when we were young, that was me.

[He's going to ask about this later, if he can. To see it through enchanted eyes, if there's time between the staccato rhythm of their lives now, filed to bursting with boisterous attention within these tavern walls, and quieter tension beyond them. Moments of actual peace are rare— it's almost funny that on paper seems to be most often the place where silent introspection reigns.

But he wants more than just to know that it happened.

(It sounds better than the piss poor facsimile Cazador foisted on them. A touch closer to Vincent, only in reverse.)]

It sounds like it was always you.

At least from where I'm standing.

[Has Astarion said too much for a conversation borne of puppy dog ears and a precious wagging tail? Perhaps— but he can't look away and pretend he doesn't see those small reaching fingers as his own so very long ago. Can't ask to know Varania as she was and then buck the response for how utterly mortal that it proves.

Like a wound that won't stop bleeding, it's the tenderness that outstrips the pain.]

As for Dal, I can't say the same about myself.

I was the runt of the litter, after all. The problem child. The troublemaker who wouldn't stop dragging them all down.

There was more power in rejection than there was in mercy offered up my way.

Edited 2025-11-26 04:35 (UTC)

Perhaps it was.

[It was always him. From the moment she was born to the moment they last met . . . even within her betrayal, it was always him. For a moment he lets that linger in silence, surprised to feel some part of his heart ache. It isn't that he misses her, exactly, but . . . perhaps he misses what she used to be. What she could have been, if Tevinter had not torn them both to pieces.]

Was there ever mercy?

[There must have been. Those healing sessions aside, oh, there must have been. Seven spawn trapped together in an endless cycle of torment and pain, and it wouldn't hurt half so much if there weren't little moments of joy. Varania's betrayal wouldn't have cut him to the core if there hadn't been so many months of letters filled with tentative connections and deepening affection.]

You asked me what the worst Varania ever did to me was. What was the best, when it came to you and Dal?

Or any of your siblings.

[Leon, Petras, Violet, Aurelia . . . or maybe it extended outside of that. Were there moments with the other slaves? He knows only the broad strokes of the dynamics within Cazador's palace, but so little of the day to day.]

Edited 2025-11-27 02:36 (UTC)

[Isn't that the way of it? Cazador, Tevinter, Danarius, they all subscribe to the same dictum at the end of the day. Too dangerous a thing to let either hope or love flourish— at least when it isn't to your own advantage.

Turn them on each other, and they'll never find the legs to challenge you.]

I don't know.

[The answer to more than one of those questions.]

I can remember-

[That r draws out long and tapers off abruptly; he'd been thinking of how good it felt on those nights when Cazador set them loose to hunt within the city, never completely beyond his gaze, but far enough that they could— sometimes— laugh and share a drink or two. He'd been thinking of the start of nights like those, rare as they had been (for it wasn't long until the 'best' hunter amongst the spawn— not Astarion— would be rewarded with fine quarters and soft silk), when pretending to be close to his false kin seemed real for fleeting minutes, and he might've tricked himself alongside their mark into believing.

But in remembering those streets in cold night air, someone else came to mind.]

My eldest brother.

[Is all he manages. Holding lifeless breath within cold lungs.]

Vincent.

[His mind whirs back, but no: the name is unknown to him. And unlike when Astarion had first revealed he had siblings, there's no burst of anger that rises within him now. This does not feel like an omission— or if it is, it's an understandable one. Leto cannot hear his lover right now, but he suspects he knows the tone his voice has taken. Low and quiet and serious as it only ever gets during moments like these.]

Tell me of him.

[For it does not take a tactician to understand what might have happened to him. The details barely matter; the fate of any spawn who isn't around anymore is easy to guess. And yet Vincent must have been someone particularly special for Astarion to remember him two hundred years later.]

He was there when you were turned . . .?

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

SOFT WHEEZE

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