What has he ever lost that wasn't stolen right from memory itself?
Ripped up and scrubbed out, and left as a gutted little plot devoid of anything at all. If there was someone he loved, he doesn't know them; if there was someplace dear to him, it's nothing but empty space and apathy. She grieves, and how is he— jagged and ruinous and loathesome by nature— meant to do anything to stop the flow of that pain?
This isn't like fawning over weeping nobility. Coaxing their wounded egos, their petty pains. He can't lie his way into settling her bleeding heart, and so...
So when she curls in, Astarion— slighter and shorter— folds his arms around her against the backdrop of a bloody opuscule: gloved fingers cool across the center of her spine, pulling her near enough to rest along his shoulder if she doesn't rail against it. A lighter draw. A cautious one.
He knows what he is.
So does she.
It won't ruin him, if she buckles and balks at his presence, here, of all places.
no subject
He doesn't know what to do.
What has he ever lost that wasn't stolen right from memory itself?
Ripped up and scrubbed out, and left as a gutted little plot devoid of anything at all. If there was someone he loved, he doesn't know them; if there was someplace dear to him, it's nothing but empty space and apathy. She grieves, and how is he— jagged and ruinous and loathesome by nature— meant to do anything to stop the flow of that pain?
This isn't like fawning over weeping nobility. Coaxing their wounded egos, their petty pains. He can't lie his way into settling her bleeding heart, and so...
So when she curls in, Astarion— slighter and shorter— folds his arms around her against the backdrop of a bloody opuscule: gloved fingers cool across the center of her spine, pulling her near enough to rest along his shoulder if she doesn't rail against it. A lighter draw. A cautious one.
He knows what he is.
So does she.
It won't ruin him, if she buckles and balks at his presence, here, of all places.