"You aren't a demon," Fenris provides. "I'd know on sight."
And then this entire conversation would be done with. But the discussion of dreams catches a cord, and how ironic is that? Fenris isn't one to dwell, however. He taps sharp gauntlet tips against the wood, damaging it further. It is old and dusty and unloved. Every touch is a harm to it.
"Killing them again," he says. He doesn't have to elaborate who them is. "Killing the one I let live. I know it will bring me no peace."
Selling out, as a rule, tends to signal the worst in everything, Astarion finds. But the bit about killing Danarius makes the timeline for that assumption all wrong— so no, it can’t have been the start of Fenris' enslavement, which means she’s not to blame for anything but a third act betrayal by the sound of it.
“She was a slave too, then? His?” That might explain the treachery, he supposes.
"Apparently..." He trails off, brow furrowed. His gauntleted thumb begins to worry a hole in the card he's holding. "I... freed her. I do not remember this. I don't remember anything before-"
He gestures to himself, his markings, and notices he is damaging the cards. He drops them and continues.
"She told me I volunteered for these markings, so she could be freed, along with our... mother." This woman he has never, will never meet, has no memory of. Did she hate him, too?
Ah, selfless sacrifice. The most damning of all sacrifices— and the least satisfying. He watches the card pinch, opens his mouth to say something, and thinks better of it. They’re Fenris’ now. To use or ruin or sell off. He won’t go whinging over seeing them wasted.
Mercifully, maybe, the card’s let go. And he relaxes. Just a touch.
“People are ungrateful.” He breathes it out easily, setting aside his own cards so as not to prompt any sense of obligation to play. Drinking instead suits him, just as fine as conversation. “Bleed for them and they’ll weep, cherish the memory— and then forget it the very next day.”
He wonders if Fenris had expected that before his memory was wiped clean. Perhaps if he’d kept some fragment of it tucked away, the damage wouldn’t run so deep.
“But I don’t understand. If she was free, why was she working for your dearly— sorry, thankfully departed master?”
Now that. That seems much more like a vetted betrayal. A true twisted arc, perfectly suited for any fairy tale or stage-lit drama.
But instead it’s Fenris’ life. And that makes it all the more unfortunate, doesn't it?
Surely there were other mages that could’ve trained her. Surely there were better ventures than allying oneself with the man that’d see your own blood kept locked up like a chained dog.
Astarion is heartless. Cold. But he doubts even he could be so harsh, not without something else bearing down against his neck. And he doesn’t know this woman well enough to picture whether her price was steep...or all too simple.
“Why did you let her go, then?”
This, he asks carefully. Passively. It can’t feel like an intrusion...or a demand.
Yet Fenris is ready to answer all the same. His past is written into his skin; what use is there hiding it? He has always been open about what he was, and why. Some foolish part of himself had always hoped someone would learn from it.
"A friend stopped me," he says. "I... it was the right choice."
The words curl across his tongue, cheshire soft in the sinking light of sunset, making him sound— or perhaps look— all the more like the sort of trickster one is warned away from trusting in storybooks. Even so, there’s no weight on the scales. He isn’t tipping them with bias, not even his own.
“You’re haunted by it all the same. It doesn’t leave you, and it certainly isn’t leaving you any room for peace.” He lets one arm rest across the edge of his chair, dangling listlessly, red eyes focused on Fenris alone.
“Who were they to make that choice for you, mm? What justified it, I wonder.”
Oh not in totality, no, but in the soundness of his own decisions. Too many times it’s far easier to rely on someone else’s logic. Someone else’s morality or reasoning or hope, woefully useless a concept as it is.
Fenris isn’t. It’s a strand of this tangled weave he can safely set aside for now, then.
“Your friend.” The one that had steered him away from the precipice— perhaps the same as the statued heroine? The pirate he speaks so fondly of, or...
"I dwell on all lost friends," Fenris says, no longer looking at the cards. He dislikes this, being lost in the past. The future is always so much more inviting.
And yet here he is now, alone. Holed up in a tower when he isn’t out hunting for bounties or working or gods know what else. His mansion is a mess, the friend he’d spoken about before nothing more than a memorialized statue, and— what, none of that is anything like a soothing presence. A promise of shelter. Security. Perpetuity.
“So it’s loss, then.” He says at last, his stare flickering in thought beneath half-lidded eyes: jumping between floor to table to wine— to Fenris. Settling.
A welcome change of subject, whatever this means. The bitter disappointment is not gone from Fenris' voice, but lessened. Wryly, "my life, or hope in general?"
“Your problem, my dear.” Astarion corrects, taking another sip from his cup before folding it neatly between his hands in the center of his lap, legs folded.
“Is loss.”
His thumb curls slightly, catching the rim of his cup, all tarnished metal. He's measuring everything now: the look on Fenris' face, the stillness of the air, the staleness of it, all keen instincts, even if he's lost so much of his former prowess.
“Then again I could be barking up the wrong tree entirely. It’s not as if I’ve got a magnifying glass held up over the collective span of your life. But— what, without your old memories, without your family, without your friends, even, the ones that clearly tugged you through the worst of it— I don’t think there’s anything aside from fighting that exists as a kind of irreversible constant.” There, with his eyebrows raised, he flexes something that's not quite a smile. Not quite anything, in fact.
“It’s no wonder you’re so angry. You probably expect to lose everything you find. Or that it’s just not for you to have at all, maybe.”
No, levity comes a little later. Here, in fact, though it’s still a touch sobered by all usual standards.
“If there is, I’m afraid I don’t know of it.” chuckled smoothly, already unfurling to set his thrice emptied cup aside, dragging cards back into his hand and snapping out a few more additions of his own to their arrangement— realizing that even having cheated, well, he’s running out of options. Their game is ending. “But that’s not to say that isn’t possible, you know. Why, I was all but doomed when I tripped and fell into this strange, strange world of yours. Maybe there’s hope for us both yet.”
Astarion’s lip pulls, going crooked. This is a real smile, at the very least.
Fenris considers this. There's nothing, really, to do for it. They are in flux. The war is bringing endless chaos, and Kirkwall is a city never content to stay calm. All feels like the Thedas is at the eye of a storm, and Astarion tells him his woe is loss.
Something old and bitter rises in Fenris' throat. It is a single peal of laughter.
"I cannot promise our next conversation will be more uplifting."
He lifts his chin, all instinct, to flash the sharper edges of his teeth when he grins. Tall and artfully arranged and confident, above all else. Optimism is a talent, after all, well-honed and difficult to pin down.
Astarion makes it look easy.
“And I can promise you, I won’t go smashing any more bottles across your flooring.” Said while settling in his seat like a cat in recline, already back to his own easy patterns as he thumbs at his remaining card.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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And then this entire conversation would be done with. But the discussion of dreams catches a cord, and how ironic is that? Fenris isn't one to dwell, however. He taps sharp gauntlet tips against the wood, damaging it further. It is old and dusty and unloved. Every touch is a harm to it.
"Killing them again," he says. He doesn't have to elaborate who them is. "Killing the one I let live. I know it will bring me no peace."
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And thank goodness, too. Contracts, quotas, negotiations over mortal souls— no thank you, it all sounds Hellish. Pun entirely intended.
Still, he listens. Forms a branch of his own and lays down another addition, considering everything to the tune of those tapping talons, unbothered.
“Who was it?”
Did they even matter, or was it just the matter of regret?
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It still feels strange to say that. He has a sister. Leto, whoever that was, had a sister. A mage sister.
"She sold me out to Danarius the day I killed him. I almost killed her."
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“She was a slave too, then? His?” That might explain the treachery, he supposes.
Then again, it might not.
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He gestures to himself, his markings, and notices he is damaging the cards. He drops them and continues.
"She told me I volunteered for these markings, so she could be freed, along with our... mother." This woman he has never, will never meet, has no memory of. Did she hate him, too?
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Mercifully, maybe, the card’s let go. And he relaxes. Just a touch.
“People are ungrateful.” He breathes it out easily, setting aside his own cards so as not to prompt any sense of obligation to play. Drinking instead suits him, just as fine as conversation. “Bleed for them and they’ll weep, cherish the memory— and then forget it the very next day.”
He wonders if Fenris had expected that before his memory was wiped clean. Perhaps if he’d kept some fragment of it tucked away, the damage wouldn’t run so deep.
“But I don’t understand. If she was free, why was she working for your dearly— sorry, thankfully departed master?”
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A dire insult, to hear him say it so.
"Danarius had promised to train her."
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But instead it’s Fenris’ life. And that makes it all the more unfortunate, doesn't it?
Surely there were other mages that could’ve trained her. Surely there were better ventures than allying oneself with the man that’d see your own blood kept locked up like a chained dog.
Astarion is heartless. Cold. But he doubts even he could be so harsh, not without something else bearing down against his neck. And he doesn’t know this woman well enough to picture whether her price was steep...or all too simple.
“Why did you let her go, then?”
This, he asks carefully. Passively. It can’t feel like an intrusion...or a demand.
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"A friend stopped me," he says. "I... it was the right choice."
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The words curl across his tongue, cheshire soft in the sinking light of sunset, making him sound— or perhaps look— all the more like the sort of trickster one is warned away from trusting in storybooks. Even so, there’s no weight on the scales. He isn’t tipping them with bias, not even his own.
“You’re haunted by it all the same. It doesn’t leave you, and it certainly isn’t leaving you any room for peace.” He lets one arm rest across the edge of his chair, dangling listlessly, red eyes focused on Fenris alone.
“Who were they to make that choice for you, mm? What justified it, I wonder.”
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"If I ever wanted to know more about my forgotten past, I could seek her out. I like having the option." Even if he doubts he will ever, ever take it.
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Oh not in totality, no, but in the soundness of his own decisions. Too many times it’s far easier to rely on someone else’s logic. Someone else’s morality or reasoning or hope, woefully useless a concept as it is.
Fenris isn’t. It’s a strand of this tangled weave he can safely set aside for now, then.
“Your friend.” The one that had steered him away from the precipice— perhaps the same as the statued heroine? The pirate he speaks so fondly of, or...
“Do you dwell on them, too?”
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And yet here he is now, alone. Holed up in a tower when he isn’t out hunting for bounties or working or gods know what else. His mansion is a mess, the friend he’d spoken about before nothing more than a memorialized statue, and— what, none of that is anything like a soothing presence. A promise of shelter. Security. Perpetuity.
“So it’s loss, then.” He says at last, his stare flickering in thought beneath half-lidded eyes: jumping between floor to table to wine— to Fenris. Settling.
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“Is loss.”
His thumb curls slightly, catching the rim of his cup, all tarnished metal. He's measuring everything now: the look on Fenris' face, the stillness of the air, the staleness of it, all keen instincts, even if he's lost so much of his former prowess.
“Then again I could be barking up the wrong tree entirely. It’s not as if I’ve got a magnifying glass held up over the collective span of your life. But— what, without your old memories, without your family, without your friends, even, the ones that clearly tugged you through the worst of it— I don’t think there’s anything aside from fighting that exists as a kind of irreversible constant.” There, with his eyebrows raised, he flexes something that's not quite a smile. Not quite anything, in fact.
“It’s no wonder you’re so angry. You probably expect to lose everything you find. Or that it’s just not for you to have at all, maybe.”
Aside from Fenris himself, who can really say.
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"This is the part where I am informed there is no remedy."
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“If there is, I’m afraid I don’t know of it.” chuckled smoothly, already unfurling to set his thrice emptied cup aside, dragging cards back into his hand and snapping out a few more additions of his own to their arrangement— realizing that even having cheated, well, he’s running out of options. Their game is ending. “But that’s not to say that isn’t possible, you know. Why, I was all but doomed when I tripped and fell into this strange, strange world of yours. Maybe there’s hope for us both yet.”
Astarion’s lip pulls, going crooked. This is a real smile, at the very least.
“Stranger things have happened.”
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Something old and bitter rises in Fenris' throat. It is a single peal of laughter.
"I cannot promise our next conversation will be more uplifting."
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He lifts his chin, all instinct, to flash the sharper edges of his teeth when he grins. Tall and artfully arranged and confident, above all else. Optimism is a talent, after all, well-honed and difficult to pin down.
Astarion makes it look easy.
“And I can promise you, I won’t go smashing any more bottles across your flooring.” Said while settling in his seat like a cat in recline, already back to his own easy patterns as he thumbs at his remaining card.
“Well...not unless you ask.”