illithidnapped | INBOX II

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 . . .?

As you were there when Varania was born.

[The first titleholder. His only recollected elder brother. Leto no doubt figured out that truth by now, but it doesn't hurt to confirm it.]

He was a very clever thing, knew what to say and when to say it, more confident than any fledgling spawn— each and every one of us— for what felt like ages stacked on ages to this day. Handsome, too. [As if anyone's surprised considering professions.] Long, midnight hair. Draped in fine, almost overwhelmingly symmetrical features. He wore them well, unlike Cazador's diversity picks.

And had a penchant for pretty little pet names like darling or sweetheart, albeit only if he liked you.

[There's no happy endings, not when it comes to stories from their past— and yet still some part of Leto feels his trepidation growing in a way it normally doesn't. It's something to do with the way Astarion writes of him, all the emotion distant and observational, but it's more than that. It's the similarities. The echoes that Leto would be blind not to recognize— and the revelation that they did not come from his lover alone.]

You modeled yourself after him.

[And doesn't he know full well how that feels . . .]

Did he teach you how to survive during those first years?

When he could.

[Did you teach her how to survive, is the question that he almost asks— almost, insofar as he doesn't do more than idly push his quill against thick parchment, carving out a dull little pointless swoop.]

That meant those trips when Cazador sent us out the door to roam in service of his dinner, Vincent taught me the most important expertise he had to offer as if we'd known each other from the start.

We had a good ten years or so, give or take.

[Such a drop in the bucket.]

For whose sake was it that you endured the worst of countless bruises for—

Your mother, or Varania?

[Ten years, and it's nothing and everything all at once. (A handful of months, and it was a lifetime and a fleeting gasp of air, there and gone). He can almost picture it, too: Astarion, terrified and so achingly young, desperately clinging to a confident, charming figure who knew how to navigate the world and didn't mind sharing that knowledge . . .

No, more than that. Who took him under his wing when he had no real reason to do so, save to find another hand reaching out in the bleakest darkness.

You were bright. And wondrous. And unsurpassed to this day, even as I know you better. He has not forgotten the visage of himself in Astarion's memories: a warrior with blade drawn and stance ready, blazing bright with lyrium as he stood in front of Astarion's sprawled form. A savior, a hero, bright and bold, ready to defend him from the world and all its horrors. And now Leto wonders distantly if he wasn't the first to strike such a figure— if, in fact, he was the second. If Astarion had not dared to look at anyone that way after the death of Vincent . . .

Maybe. Maybe not.]

Varania. Always, Varania.

[He thinks it a genuine question at first, so distracted is he. Only afterwards does he read into the jagged scrawl and realize that Astarion might be picking a fight— but that's all right. Maker knows he's endured so many of Leto's snarling moods over the past year.]

Tell me how he taught you. Or why you ask such a question— unless it was him who endured for your sake.

[He'd thought so.

Not because Leto's mother was inferior in any way— he'd never gotten the sense of that if he's entirely honest. More that there was always a lingering sense of something like responsibility that loitered in the way Leto spoke about the competition he willingly (and yet unwittingly— so achingly similar to a pact made long ago) took part in under Danarius' watchful gaze, and whilst his mother was no doubt a concern, he didn't raise her. Didn't watch her take her first few fumbling steps, clinging tightly to his hand.

Astarion was picking a fight.

Even when he'd puncture his own heart for his amatus, he is a bitter thing by nature; prone to stricken little aches for all the things he cannot have— might never have— whatever reason there might be, whatever responsibility he bears in it, doesn't matter in the long run. He died an adolescent thing. Maybe he's fated always to be one.

That's why it was a gentler thing. Not as barbed as the snarls he'd spat out at the others when he wanted to be left alone— but a snappish sign of milder discomfort.

Of bruising.]

Because he left.

[No, there never was another shining hero at the dawn of his unlife like Fenris. There was no first-admired savior. No balm stood at his side ready to face the nightmare arm-in-arm. It was Cazador that Astarion knew first in his most fledgling days, and it was Cazador he was left to after the brother that he'd loved had left.

That's why he didn't think of him. Hadn't thought of him in years. Erased the memory of it all— hid it even from himself, buried down so deeply that it only came in as a flickering epiphany.]

Fled one night with a promise he'd 'be back soon, darling,' and like the stupid thing I was back then I thought he'd meant it. Just one more hunt like any other— why wouldn't he return for me? What reason had I to doubt him, when all we had was one another?

[The markings bleed a little under pressure; ink lines shallow as they well.]

That was why I asked.

You were a better brother than he was. Your answer proves it.

[Something hard drops in the pit of Leto's stomach, nauseating him as he stares down at the words. He left, two words that might come across as cold and stoic if you couldn't hear pain woven within every word. A hurt so potent that it closes Leto's throat and blurs his vision for a few seconds, no matter that the scar is two centuries old.

And what does he say to that? I'm sorry is meaningless, though he is. You deserved so much better is far more true, but Astarion knows that already. I love you, I wish I had been there, I will never do that to you, I will never leave you, my heart hurts for you, and all of those are true, but it isn't what he wants to say.]

Fuck him.

[It’s vulgar as he so rarely is, spat out and snarled. He can hear his heart thundering in his ears, a rapidfire rhythm that’s growing louder by the second.]

If he was fool enough to leave you behind, he isn’t worth recalling.

[That isn’t true, but he’s furious.]

You were a far better sibling than Varania ever was. A far better companion than anyone I have ever met in my life. He was a fool to leave you behind— and the fact you are here, now, with allies at your side and a knife in your hand ready to slaughter your master, only proves it.

And where is he now?

I will give him credit for teaching you if it helped you survive— but I will never forgive him for that.

Fuck him.

[It can't undo the past. It can't change the loss his fledgling self had suffered, or the collapse of willpower that followed when weeks of waiting shifted into months, and years, and centuries soon eclipsed by the subconscious act of forgetting— or maybe by forgetfulness he never had a hand in in the first place (there is, as they attested to each other, tracing out the lines of glassy lyrium brands, only so much a man can take before his mind opts to wipe the slate).

But it doesn't need to.

What he has now is the penned-out-permanence of a heart that walked through the Crossroads themselves to find him, returned not only once, but twice. What he has now was bought upon the stepping stones of the sihlouette that disappeared two centuries ago, and this time it doesn't leave, and it doesn't abate, and it does more even in the darkest nights than scant lessons or soft-spoken pet names ever could.

Not just the better brother, the better man.

(Perhaps someday the others in the Elfsong bunks might tell him of his brother. Perhaps sometime soon the matter of a ring, and old confessions, and a pitiful goodbye had in Athkatla might come up in fireside discussions of adventures he's forgotten that they've shared. Perhaps, but perhaps is later's gambit.)]

Slim competition, if we're discussing the matter of being backstabbing siblings [A single pattering drop of wetness blurs the ink it spills across— apparently, even penned, his teasing levity betrays him. And at least between the two of them, Astarion admits as much.]

Thank you.

[His quaking inhale is swift; doesn't fully transfer to the parchment beyond the redoubled flow of penmanship, resetting his own mood.]

—how in the Realms did we get here??

[On this subject, he means, laughing weakly to himself.]

[He doesn't reply. Words are useless when he's so close that scrawling out an answer would only delay him more— and anyway, what is there to say? He knows why Astarion asks, so better to give him a few more moments to exhale the memories away.

A moment later there's footsteps darting swiftly up the stairs two at a time. A door opens, and like clockwork, a familiar chorus of delighted barks and eager whines arise around the coffin. Three bodies barrel across the room, leaping around Leto in a bid for attention that's equal parts overjoyed and greedily eager for his focus— but oh, all three girls are destined to be disappointed, for his pace slows just long enough to give each of them a swift scrub behind the ears as he murmurs his greeting. A few voices call out from beyond the partition, and those are offered a rumbling greeting tossed carelessly over his shoulder: yes, hello, so blatantly uninterested that it borders on rudeness— but who cares, for there the coffin is, and then—

There Leto is, emerald eyes serious beneath the low-hanging hood of his cloak.

There's nothing else so important as this, he thinks as he climbs into the coffin and closes the lid behind him. Nowhere else he needs to be that matters as much as being home, curled up and holding his mate as the last of those emotions shudders through him. He won't say anything, for there's no use in reopening an already raw wound. But he saw the way ink had smeared; he sees the redness in his mate's eyes, and he will not leave him alone to weather this storm.]

Come here.

[He wraps his arms around his mate, gathering him up without prompting. Come here, my love, his palms warm and firm as they sweep over his back. Gently he presses a kiss to his forehead, the tip of his nose, and then finally to the corner of his mouth. Come here and be with me.

A moment, and he wrinkles his nose in wry amusement.]

And do your best not to shriek your delight.

[If distraction comes at his own expense, all the better. Leto untangles one hand only to sweep the hood back away from his face. Two puppish ears pop out, one and then the other sticking straight up: their fur the same shade as his hair, their appearance tall and pointed.]

The tail is tucked down my pants . . .

[It's a miracle it isn't wagging, but chalk that up to his concern for Astarion.]

[He does his level best. Oh, cross his unliving, frigid heart he does. Any amount of noise will startle (and thoroughly alert) the others at a time like this, but gods above after all that they've endured today he cannot help the sounds that leave him in abrupt, abject delight. Not solely for the downy tufts pale claws carefully comb over— although they are, admittedly, a remarkably large portion of it— but more importantly that his darling Leto is here, subject yet again to a bevy of kisses and cooing remarks.

It is so hard to sneak up on a vampire, after all.

And this is the cutest thing he's ever seen.]

[There's no wisdom in fighting it— and truth be told, no real desire to either. He'd be embarrassed if this happened in front of others, but as it stands: there are far, far worse things than wriggling beneath the outpouring of delighted affection from his mate. Leto beams beneath the onslaught, alternating between kissing back when he feels cool lips against his own and rumbling in open contentment when he doesn't, his heart melting for every doting compliment and cooing exclamation. Gods above, he hears again and again as claws brush against his ears, and ooh, it feels so good. So good. So so so good, and without thinking he pushes into it, eager as Ataashi on her neediest days.

(Funny, he thinks a moment later. Funny how things change, for it wasn't two years ago that he would have been repulsed beyond belief by this transformation. Horrified and all but ready to take a blade to the damned things if it would fix it, and now . . . now, he knows better. Perhaps he will never adore magic. Certainly he never will in Thedas, but things are different here, and at least it no longer terrifies him the way it once did).

And oh: he loves this, he does, but ow.]

Wait, wait— Astarion—

[Laughingly said, but he does his damned best to free at least one hand so he can reach behind him. It's the work of a moment to shimmy his pants down low on his hips, just far enough that the other addition his backlashing magic gave him can finally spring free. It is, mercifully, proportionate enough that it doesn't take up much room in the coffin— but there's no mistaking the rapidfire thump-thump-thump that beats against the side.]

Er— it's uncomfortable to have it constrained.

[So. Yes, and he clears his throat, something a little less than embarrassment crossing his expression. It's no worse than the ears, but still. It's an odd thing to have a tail. Odder still to be unable to control how it wags— nor, indeed, how much faster it goes each time Astarion lavishes another bit of affection upon him.]

Edited 2025-12-05 01:31 (UTC)

[Oh— oh oh oh— gods and stars above and every layer of the Hells themselves, he's utterly done for— if he hadn't been done in well over two centuries before now. All that's left for a heart that's long stopped beating is to squeal like a godsdamned child with stars drifting in their eyes.

He takes hold of it before he knows it— no, one hand still atop an ear, pinching it, but the other— ]

Oh.

My.

GODS—

[There's no avoiding it anymore, his keening will alert the Elfsong at this rate. ~~Now all of China knows you are a dog.~~

Something to deal with later.]

Fenris— [Ah, no that hasn't been his name for a long time, not even in front of all the others, now.] Leto— I can't— lookatyou— [Those two sentiments aren't connected, as is evidenced by the overbright coddling and cooing louder than a flock of doves along the tail end: look at you is repeated again and again and again, scrubbing with both hands— forgetting how to blink. Forgetting that he should, and that this is in fact something that all mortals ought to do.] Look how adorable you are!! Why haven't you done this sooner?! It's so unbearably fetching— pun unintended but OH. MY. STARS, LITTLE PUP. You truly are my catulus now, aren't you? Aren't you?

[He's cradling that face in all its splendor, crowing like he's speaking to Ataashi at her best. Hello. Hello hello hello oh who's a darling little boy ♡♡♡]

[Oh gods, he's going to regret this the moment he exits out of the coffin (if he exits out at all; perhaps he'll just live in here for the next three days, forgoing food and water until these ears disappear). There's no way the others can't hear Astarion right now, effusive as he is— but oh, that's a problem for later. Right now Astarion is looking giddier than he has in ages, and flustered though he might be, Leto can't possibly take that away from him.

Especially when there's a part of him that's trying not to bark in overstimulated, giddying excitement. His tail is wagging up a storm, his cheeks flushed happily as he squirms within his husband's hold, every doggish instinct within him sitting up and panting in open response: it's him it's him, he's his catulus, oh he is he is, he's such a good boy good boy good boy, nonsensical and overstimulated in the sweetest of ways.

(Outside the coffin, there's one very petulant, very confused whine. Why, Ataashi wonders, are those wonderful sounds happening when they aren't directed at her? It can't be at the brats; they're still both visibly baffled as they snuffle the spot where their father had been a few minutes ago, trying to determine what makes his scent so strange right now. Which is good, for she'd riot if it was directed towards them— but if not them, and not her, then why is it happening? And yet there's no answer, no matter how loudly she whines— and so after a few minutes, she teleports her way beneath Shadowheart's bed, ignoring the cleric's startled squawking in favor of bedding down for a good sulk).]

Hush— hush—

[He's still grinning as he says it, unwilling to fully put a stopper in his amatus' excitement. But when mere words don't prove enough, Leto darts in to press their lips together in a forceful kiss. Settle in, the emphasis coming from how he surges forward and urges Astarion to lay flat against the bottom of the coffin.]

You are a menace. Does this really thrill you so much?

[Of course it does. It thrills them both, for Leto's tail (now perched in the air) is still wagging furiously.]

It was an accident, not deliberate— and if you do not settle down, the others will come disturb us, and that will be the end of your fun. You—

SOFT WHEEZE

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