#starlatan

[sleetkissed-a]

one-liner-call .

         ❝  Whatever  you  are  doing,  it  looks  horrendous.  You  should  let  more  capable  people  handle  this.  ❞        @starlatan

[vlaakithswill-a]

— zevran ask meme ; @starlatan asked: do i detect a bit of jealousy there? feeling territorial, are we?

"jealousy?"

the word is rolled against her tongue like a jagged stone. lae'zel, in her leather smallclothes, bears a scowling face and a cold flush under her neckflesh. (the sensation is unpleasant, prickling. a lesser mind might liken it to embarrassment.) she has no desire to find camaraderie with astarion, yet her night has already gone sour. she sits on her bedroll by the campfire and regards him pridefully.

"a jest, and a pitiful one," she snaps, loathe to admit that she has been jilted. "does your vampirism extend to preying on gossip?" (word has, admittedly, always traveled quickly around camp.)

[tadbitfooled]

@starlatan sent: ""I just want you to be happy. And perhaps a little bit naked." @Vin" from 𝐅𝐋𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒

The smell of blood and death had been...Overwhelming that day, to say the least. The darkness inside had been clawing at him especially hard. The pull back and forth, the trying to contain it and be...Himself? Who was that, even?

He'd only been half listening as Astarion rattled on. His focus had been trying to sort out his thoughts and quell the ones he didn't want.

He registered the remark, though, and gave Astarion an unimpressed look.

"Confident, aren't you?" His tone was drier than cheap wine. "The only way you'd possibly see me even a little bit naked is if I were a corpse."

[tadbitfooled]

@starlatan sent: ""I don't take sides." @Vin" from 4-Word Sentence Prompts

"A pragmatic approach," Tavinkas remarked, eying the other over the campfire. The discussion had been about the issue with the tieflings and goblins. One side the aggressor, one side just trying to make their way through to safety. "And also a coward's...Or perhaps a fool's."

Tavinkas leaned closer, the fire dancing against his two toned eyes, shadows flickering across his face.

"Tell me, then, Astarion, you don't pick sides. What happens when everyone else is dead and you're the only one remaining in the house?" A flash of something...A whisper. Tavinkas pushed it aside. "You could have stopped it before it came for you."

Tavinkas gave a mocking scoff, sitting back.

"Besides, we need the healer Halsin. You're a man who looks for his own benefits, so aiding the tieflings helps us in the end."

[thanflowers]

❀‧̥ — memes / accepting!

@starlatan said: "Is this normal for you? Going out of your way like this?"

        “I don't know what you mean by ‘out of my way’,” Elspeth says, eyes scanning the swamp as they make their way back out of it again. Dealing with Auntie Ethel was... taxing and she's eager to find a sunnier place where they all can rest. “You mean lying to that monster hunter?” She tilts her head, smiling slightly. “I may not be sure you're good, Astarion, but I definitely don't think you're a monster.” 

[faebhaal]

“You’re getting blood everywhere.”

@starlatan

Unblinking rings of blazing amethyst stare at him in silence. Is she? She supposes so. The warmth of the viscera and splatters of garnet have started to cool against freckled, orchid flesh. A glanced down towards the sickle blades reveal that they too are dripping with blood. The thought to lick the sanguine syrup from the metal crosses her mind; a hand even twitches to perform such an action. Yet she remembers that all of camp can see her. That and it's weird, right? Weird to pull a move like that. Just as strange as it is to have such a perverse penchant for violence that she does.

MONSTER.

That's what she is. Even if her fractured psyche can't clearly remind her of such, it doesn't take a genius to know something is wrong. Maybe it's just the worm the wriggles through her neural network. Doubtful.

At last she seems to snap back. When she looks at Astarion, the facade has slipped back into place — all doe eyes and innocence. "I guess you're right. Wouldn't be very nice to track goblin blood everywhere, huh?" Or was it gnoll? She can't quite recall. Too many beings have been cut down in her wake.

Ithaca lets out a dramatic sigh, a pout starting to tug at stained lips. "I suppose I'll go down to the stream." she mutters. Then she gives him a bat of lashes. "Wanna come with me?"

[recitedemise]

Astarion is nervous. This hasn't gone as he intended.

Sweat filled his cold palms. If he had a heartbeat, it'd surely be racing. Gale was the perfect fool he was looking for, zeroed in on him as he's done a thousand times before. Granted, he's never made someone fall in love with him on the intent to use them as protection but it felt like the obvious thing to do.. the thing he should do. When God has stripped you of all your tools and blessed you with only few, you'll use them with everything you had... and Astarion had. What he hadn't intended on was feeling anything back. Two centuries was a long time to harden a heart.. yet it was a bleeding one that had caused his to crack. He wanders to his tent. Usually full of boisterous confidence, instead Astarion wears a new look. Fear. His chin is downward, eyes verting away before glancing towards him looking nearly shameful or embarrassed. "Are you turning in for the night? Before that I was hoping to be able to talk to you.. about something important." Astarion was a liar. Like any vampire before him and like any that would come after, manipulation was among their most powerful tools. His honesty that's about to pour from his lips could cost him everything he's been building. The guilt he had been wearing was weighing heavier than the consequences these days.

"You see, I had this plan. A brilliant plan. I was going to seduce you, bed you, and make you fall in love with me so that you'd never have it in you to betray me." A nervous laugh that quickly dies out. "The only thing I had to do was not feel anything towards you.. and that's where my plan fell apart." It made him angry, an anger rooted in terror. All this time he'd thought he had the power over Gale, manipulating him around like a little good puppet.. but before he realized what had happened, Gale had power over him. Now Astarion stood before him baring a painful truth.. but it was a truth that Gale deserved. He wouldn't lie to him any longer.

Astarion has been a difficult read, admittedly. He's like a man on a stage, an actor so contrived as to twist and turn and confound the mind. Gale trips to understand him, struggling profoundly on his alien tongue, but to that very heart he nurses—of which, he's quite a bit—the wizard doesn't mind his more arduous study. Rather, he accepts him. In fact, he dares.

Sigh. With hope, their ever sanguine companion will trust, ridding those masks and every bitter pretense. Gale pauses, undoing the ribbon sweeping back his hair. With hope. His tent flaps flutter, and the moon slips in.

Astarion? He blinks with surprise. "My time is yours."

And Astarion! Astarion looks frightened, positively, remarkably, and surprisingly bare. He stands unfettered, stripped to his pulse sat still and unbeating as his bones, buffeted, meet a storm. Perhaps he should've raged. Or perhaps, made a fool, done him much worse. Yet, even marionetted under Astarion's sure hands, Gale can only grapple at every last, winding word...

The confession—is that what it is?—takes him off guard.

Oh. Gale opens his mouth to speak. For a second, all that whispers is the indiscernible hum of the far-off stars, and in the cradle of his spirit, rioting hope.

The only thing I had to do was not catch feelings for you... and that's where my plan fell apart.

I— "I wouldn't have turned my back on you, Astarion, whether that deviation in your plan had sprung up or not," he starts. Would he have? His eyes, clear and warm like the earth warmed with season, offers it proudly: Yes, I would. "But to be sure, I am glad to hear it. Indescribably glad. To know I've complicated things a great deal for you... any apology on my part would ring considerably hollow."

Gale feels a riot of color claw up his neck. He is antsy, thrilled, and awkward, feeling all a school boy before a man so sleek and impossibly elegant. "I am quite taken by you, and I doubt very much that neither my feelings nor my desire to help will change with tonight's sudden revelations. I'm sure I've hardly been." Well. "Subtle."

[oflolth]

“ooooooh … shit.”

ALWAYS SUNNY / ACCEPTING. / " oh shit, " sen echoes. " what the fuck are the magic words? I DON'T KNOW HOW TO RHYME, ASTARION. MY BRAIN IS FULL OF HOLES! "

she winces as she gives the bell another shake. " hi, dolly thrice? hear me out: we will give you, er... " sen's teeth worry at her lip. " what do pixies eat? roast dwarf? "

( three seconds later, in place of the dark urge sits a blue-grey little frog. )