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[rowancrowned]

 

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[rowancrowned]

( halting: ) You tried to- to-

( meddle seems the best word, and generously benevolent in its assumptions of astarion's motivations.

and then he remembers how this whole thing started. )

Leave her be. ( not a command. ) She- ( an exhale. ) let her decide her approach. Always. Tell me you have not been needling her.

( but back to what's got astarion down. )

No. Do they have you playing at enslavement?

[illithidnapped]

I wasn't needling her! [He protests, scoffing sharp through even sharper teeth.]

I only asked her to reconsider. Once or twice. Or...

[What follows is a thin mutter. So very quiet.]

...slightly more than that, maybe.

[rowancrowned]

Ah, ( suspicions confirmed. ) She loathes that.

( curious, despite himself: ) Who did she delegate to answer?

[illithidnapped]

Oh, that nuisance whose name I can't even bother to remember. The one that ghosts after her like her bloody shadow.

[He's never once made an attempt at pronouncing it, and he's not about to start now.]

[rowancrowned]

Guilfoyle, ( like astarion doesn't absolutely know it. ) Her protector.

Tell me more of what is happening in Wycome. What you are doing.

[illithidnapped]

[There are some people— even in Riftwatch— that Astarion wouldn't dare talk to about this. Missions are delicate things, after all. Glass little houses all their own, and the potential for someone to find themselves perfectly aligned to let told details slip is always high when you're an organization held together by nothing but Anchor Shards and glue and a little soft-spoken twine.

But Thranduil is one of a rarer few. And Astarion's voice drops as he settles against the balcony, witheringly resigned, now that he's out of conversational shields.]

I was sent here to get in close with the Duke and his social circle. The creme de la creme of this sprawling scene. More importantly, I needed to sniff out whether or not any Tevinter agents are here doing the exact same— ergo, no letting it slip that I'm not from around here. Being assigned our dear Loki d'Asgard as my partner, the cover story practically wrote itself.

I'm good at this sort of thing, you know. I've always been good at it. In fact, I enjoy it for the most part. [It's a powerful thing, to lie and be so sure of yourself in it. To know you're the one pulling the strings for a change.]

I just didn't expect it to be so....taxing, I suppose.

[rowancrowned]

The differences between your home and Thedas being too deep a chasm to span easily, or something specific about the event itself?

( it's easy for him to pull details, to coax, to untangle. add to that the fact that he cares, genuinely, and his tone is curious, soft. )

[illithidnapped]

It's what I used to do, actually. For Cazador, my old master. It was the only time I was ever allowed to leave his side, in fact. I’d get dressed up in finery as though I were still nobility, go trotting out into the city and swan my way into the nicest of parties.

And then into someone else’s heart.

Cazador was particular, though. Nothing less than the best would do. Bringing someone back anything other than the height of beauty and I’d be—

Well. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the details.

[He exhales, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth. His tone is casual. Conversational, rather than overtly pained.]

Anyway long story short, I thought doing this for myself would feel better. Getting to use my skills for my own reasons, that sort of thing.

Admittedly it does. But...

The days are beginning to drag, now. The shine’s wearing, I suppose.

[Like so much else in regards to his newfound freedom, it always feels better at first and then—

Then it stops.]

[rowancrowned]

You have my sympathies for the loss of your ( what's the word. ) pastime. Or the possibility of the enjoyment thereof.

( astarion has given him at great deal to pull at, later. lots of little threads begging to be tugged upon. a name. but for now- )

How soon until you return? Surely no more than a fortnight.

[illithidnapped]

[Astarion snorts hotly at that offer of sympathy; no doubt an expected response, given how poorly mercy attunes itself to him. Pity even less.]

No, I imagine we'll be here just a few days more. It's not as if we're here to actually sway the man, only to sniff out the stage, in essence.

[And then, mildly:]

Please don't tell me you want to spar the moment I get back.

[rowancrowned]

Hardly any time at all.

After you showed such an aversion to the idea? ( amused. ) No.

What is your weapon of choice? Besides your charm.

[illithidnapped]

As if I need anything else.

[He might— despite everything— sound suddenly bolstered by the acknowledgment of said charm, however.

Shallow praise. Ever a balm.]

But go on. Take a guess. What do you think I fight with?

[rowancrowned]

Knives. ( the guess is confident, immediate. ) Long enough to force distance if you need it, more a fencer than a street fighter. But intimate. The kill must be made close.

[illithidnapped]

[Astarion makes a faint noise at that. Bullseye, sir.]

Not bad. [Said as if it were somehow expected, that entirely correct response.

It wasn't.]

I made it easy for you. But now it's my turn. [A beat, and then:]

A sword, perhaps? Elegant. Dignified.

Poised.

[It's either that or a bow, he'd guess. But no one spars with that.]

[rowancrowned]

Two, ( he confirms. )

Regal, I would say.

[illithidnapped]

[Astarion would be awash in disappointment for not having won the most insignificant of games, if not for one little detail—]

Regal. [He repeats, seemingly delighted by this fresher show of dignity.]

My my, such a lofty descriptor— not that I disagree with it, there's something to be said for the natural poise dual-wielding requires, and you do cut quite the striking figure when you're not wilting like a fallen willow.

[It's a small little noise, touching the back of his throat.] Well. Even then, admittedly.

But you know, you never did say exactly what your role was before you came stumbling into this miserable world.

[And Astarion, still faintly stinking of vindictively spilled wine, could use the distraction.]

[rowancrowned]

'Wilting'?

( the word said with the verbal equivalent of being held between two fingers, something gross the cat brought in, corrections wholly ignored. )

I was a lord.

( a steward with a particularly nice hat. )

[illithidnapped]

[It's so satisfyingly easy sometimes; what a gift, the sound of that revulsion.

Attention is always attention, after all.]

Arda, wasn't it? The place you'd mentioned once before. [A lot can be said of Astarion's callous nature, but his memory is sound, and he covets those fragile details as much as the cluttered curiosities set within his own home.]

Given that you and I are the only sharp-eared former nobility I've met, I'll assume it wasn't just a heap of bark and leaves, or some shrinking recess in the midst of an otherwise expansive world.

[rowancrowned]

Taur-nu-Fuin. Mirkwood, as the Men called it. The largest Elven kingdom yet remaining on the continent.

( exorcised of longing in the tone, but not fondness. )

Enough so that the lord was simply the Elvenking.

[illithidnapped]

The largest— [His laugh is high. Brittle. Quick in the way anything reflexive is, like jerking fingertips or a twitch at the corner of a mouth— only when it ends, nothing else steps in.

Because Lord finally translates as the pieces settle in. Not a Duke or a Baron, or some self-appointed keeper of a patch of muddy earth. A fucking Elven king. Literally the Elvenking. It's right there in the bloody title.

And here he’s been making an ass of himself, teasing the man about twigs and deer and frolicking in the woods. Making him clean fish and tend the fire and— Hells, even shameless Astarion, nuisance and jackknife rolled into one, knows exactly what kind of insults he's managed.

So just. Just give him one minute. To catch his breath and find his footing and put away the memory of baser commentary or silken hair tangled up in bedsheets before he melts entirely into the stone railing currently propping him upright.]

You couldn’t have told me sooner?

[rowancrowned]

( he waits for Astarion to finish sputtering before he replies, all cool smoothness: )

Told you what?

[illithidnapped]

Told— [Incredulous. Scoffing. How does he not know?]

That you were a damned king? The quintessential sort, in fact, going by the whole Elvenking affair. I—

[rowancrowned]

I have no armies. No holdings. No storied history nor alliances.

( blunt, ) If I were to put on my crown and call myself Lord, I would be thought a madman, or worse, a fool, and an elf either way. What good would that do me?

[illithidnapped]

[There, at least, is an utterly sobering truth: the sort Astarion can understand, given that for all his open-mouthed teasing, he's only confessed the depth of his true nature to a handful of people at best— and that percentage drops even more sharply in the case of anyone native to this world.

Self-preservation, realistic perceptions. It's his language, really. How can he blame Thranduil for it, when all he's done is the exact same thing?]

...well. [He starts, quiet in that tellingly contemplative docility of his.] I wouldn't have thought you were mad.

[For the record, at least.]

[rowancrowned]

( this is— better. he likes this reaction more.

how easily the mantle has fallen off, in what, less than a decade? a blink of an eye, for an elf, an idle afternoon. his entire life— )

I have a crown. It might well have added to the effect.

( it’s right over there, under the robe draped over the wardrobe door. )

You will not be behaving differently, I hope.