[ Astarion is still adjusting to being awake during the sunlight hours and not ducking and covering at every single moment. Being able to see things in colour, being able to enjoy the warmth of the daylight without the single of fire is a gift in itself, and it makes him feel a little bit too close to happy for comfort. Perhaps things would be easier if he was able to go back to being a creature of the night - but that isn't what he wants. This is what he wants - freedom, joy, the experience of living once again.
He's seen Shadowheart and Lae'zel kneel and do whatever thoughts and prayers come to their mind, just as he had watched Godfrey make his own each morning. Another thing he struggles to wrap his mind around; do their Gods truly speak to them, and hear a response? When he had cried out for salvation, for freedom, for - anything, really, he had been ignored. Silence had greeted him as he wept, and he could only imagine that he deserved it.
Huffing a quiet chuckle, he makes himself more comfortable, turning his head to look at Godfrey properly. An intimidating man by all accounts, but Astarion finds himself less afraid these days. He can speak his mind a little more, tiptoe around conversations that cause irritation - like the heroics.
[ look bud you can take the lathanderite out of the church but you wont take the church out of the lathanderite
And, really, that's something he ought to open up with Astarion too, at some point. Much noise had been made about Godfrey's trusting him - and even Godfrey himself could see why the decision might be perplexing. But Astarion had managed his thirst safely until his lapse; had he wanted, he's more aware than the others just how easily he could have drained them all as they slept, and he hadn't. That was enough for Godfrey to extend some clemency.
But on the neglected other half of this exchange sits Astarion, no doubt knowing exactly what the Morninglord had to say about vampires and undead. Eradication was to be the salvation of those like Astarion - stakes, holy water, smiting. His scripture was unavoidably clear; the only way Astarion's new ally could make the God to whom he had so openly devoted his life happy was to reduce him to ash, and now he knew it.
Surely holding his head under the riverwater as he prayed at dawn would have been safer for him than Godfrey with the full knowledge of who and what he is - but he had also extended his trust. It deserved just as much recognition, if not more.
He might have begun forming these important words, had Astarion not asked something unexpected - to hear stories of Godfrey's life. He supposes it's expected, and he's entitled to as much - Godfrey had taken enough of the stories of his companions and given little of his own. ]
I surely could. [ He nods amiably - and really, figures that he should have guessed that someone would be curious enough to probe him back after he had pried so much at them. ] Although I'm not sure that anything I could give you of my home would be terribly entertaining. My life until recent events has been wonderfully mundane.
[ ... the bits he's willing to share have been wonderfully mundane. Godfrey turns to lay on his side, his weight on one elbow instead of two, facing Astarion fully as he starts reaching through his memory. ]
I'm Baldurian, just as you are... and I was a priest.
[ If the tadpole hadn't given their companions that much, then they had surely smelled the cloth on him despite him giving it up - it had forever been the first guess of countryside farmers selling their wares in street markets.
So, as Astarion had trusted him with so much, Godfrey would in turn trust him with something new; ]
I was married, too, once.
[ Of the two people who had taken over his life, he thinks, Vladimir has a better chance of amusing than Iltha - delightful as she is to Godfrey, he can't be sure yet that Astarion will feel the same about tales of her young wildness and proclivity to say just what she shouldn't. By contrast, his husband with all of his stoicism and seriousness seemed as though he would have inherent comedy to Astarion.
So he glances down the edge of himself, thoughtful contours of his face caught by the glow of the campfire at his back, trying to call back his ghost.
Abruptly, he catches on to something, and he smiles, and he recounts his memory in a low and soft voice. ]
You know-- for a time, he had been trying very hard to learn Elvish. I had helped him find all of these books, and he spent so many weeks reading from them. Reciting syllables. Only - my Vladimir, he was... he grew up in the countryside, came to the city to learn a trade. He just had that very dour, rough way of speaking - the kind of man you couldn't imagine speaking in any other way. And I don't need to tell you, Elvish is such a musical language, light on the tongue.
[ Godfrey himself knows precious little Elvish beyond the basics, but has heard enough of it to know how the language sat in his husband's mouth - awkward, broad, deadly serious. All of the things about him that Godfrey had always been inescapably fond of. ]
'He drops the words like stones,' is what I heard an Elven neighbour of ours tell her brother after she heard him practicing.
[ Astarion isn't certain what he expected to hear, but this wasn't it. He had never pictured their proxy leader as what sounded almost like a homebody, happy in their relationship with their God and their husband. The idea doesn't sit right with the life they're leading now, as if all of that had been somehow torn from him. It's clear as day that something happened to the husband, the spouse, and he doesn't want to push and prompt at what befell him. Now is hardly the time for quite that level of sadness, even with the darkness of the starlight resting on their shoulders.
What does strike him is how little he can imagine it. Being married - being in love, even, choosing to devote his very long life to someone. The very notion is something senseless, not when he is well aware of his position in life. This is not the type of story that he is ever going to be able to write for himself, especially not if he fails in his quest for eternal freedom. Cazador remains a threat hanging over his head, and Astarion thinks...
Marriage. Happiness. A life, with a family, with love.
The last two hundred years have been completely without the majority of those things. One might describe his 'brothers' and 'sisters' as a family, but it isn't the same, is it now? They were sired together, perhaps, with a single master, or father, but it wasn't a choice. He did not ask to dig his way out of his own grave, did not ask to be used as a tool to summon food back for his master while being given nothing but rats. That is not the family he chose, and the reminder leaves a dead, sinking weight in his stomach as he frowns, staring at the stars.
The night used to be everything to him; when he could move, when he could slip away, the flickering hint of colour in alleys. Seeing the world in the light of day, with all the colours and brightness it has to offer... Perhaps he hates the night a little more, now.
Swallowing, he flexes his hands, not quite noticing how they were clenched until he came back to himself, tugged out of his thoughts by the sound of Godfrey's voice. It's soothing enough, Astarion thinks, and he focuses, not wanting to miss any of this. He had asked, after all. ]
It is a bit of a nuisance to learn, isn't it? Not usually fit for the tongue of the common folk. Or, well, country folk, perhaps.
[ Calling your friend(?)'s dead spouse "common" was hardly the way to earn eternal sanctuary from the threat of damnation, after all. Astarion speaks it well enough, but never bothered to use it - the others in camp didn't seem to have much concern for it. ]
But at least he tried. For you. That's... Sweet.
[ The word tastes wrong on his tongue, as if calling the effort of anyone sweet was poison. There's an air, now, of pained frustration settling on his shoulders, and he waves a hand to try and shrug it away. Now isn't the time to really trip into being morose; that will come later, when he is alone with thoughts and memories that seek to drown him. ]
[ Not for him - not entirely. His stumbling and awkward attempt at pronouncing an old Elvish declaration of love to him, yes. The effort overall, though, was unmistakably for the girl they had between them.
Or so Godfrey thinks. He had never asked him when he had the chance, and nor did he ever feel the need to. The marked maps he had found spoke plainly for themselves, regardless of what Vladimir could tell him. He had wanted to be ready if the day came that Iltha wanted to find her mother.
But even in this rare moment of happy reverie, he can see that something he said has pulled taut through Astarion. The petty correction is hardly worth upsetting the tenuous balance they've begun to strike - and nor is rising to that veiled unkindness he pays. Godfrey spent too long serving the underserved from his church to rise to every provocation he finds, and besides, he can't expect Astarion to have all respect for a man he never knew.
So instead, he smiles, and he nods along. ]
He certainly had his way.
[ Which is to say: charming or completely impossible, and you can't pick your poison because he chooses for you. ]
But-- surely it's no wont for stories of domesticity that has busied your thoughts. Perhaps you could share something of what has, and we can hope that I'll have thought of something better to share before we've talked it through.
[ Astarion doesn't want to turn the attention back to himself - for once - as the conversation is a little too... Real for him. The idea of admitting anything about himself aloud is a painful one, and his eyes glance over to Godfrey before he breathes out a little huff of noise, waving his hand absently. What a silly, foolish thing, to be so emotional over nothing more than a simple little story. ]
Many people do, or so I've heard.
[ The stars captivate him again, for a little while, and before he can get too lost in all his thoughts he tries to muster some kind of words. ]
Must there be something? When I look at the stars nothing in particular comes to mind. Simply the silence of a world that has rarely given any answer.
[ His expression flickers, and then he turns to look at Godfrey again, properly. ]
I don't have stories of husbands, or learning a language, or working in a church.
[ The notion of which makes his words curl with disdain. ]
Just what you already know.
[ The scrabbling of rats, hunger that never ends, his body under others with nothing but the darkness of a ceiling to keep him present in the moment. ]
[ There are a number of things he would know, if he could.
His companions, on the whole, had been reticent where their pasts were concerned - and that was their right. He doesn't think any of them had Astarion's nervous and timid secrecy. It was something he'd thought he understood, once he'd learned one truth of him - of course he would be cagey and secretive of his past, lest someone discover his undeath.
Not that he'd expected that would be the complete end of it, as vampires so often left a trail of broken lives behind them. But there had been a sense of false understanding in him then; that this would be, perhaps, the biggest secret, and like a plug pulled, the rest might come more easily. Not so. Instead, it seemed to Godfrey that some new tragedy tangled there to stopper things again. There seemed to him a multitude of unfairness, of horrible sadness and trauma, almost too much to keep so neatly contained in such a body.
And it was, of course, his right to contain it all. Astarion owed him nothing - certainly not a look at what hurt him. But it has been a challenge to keep this barrier in place when he sees the pain so clearly as he does now - the mere reminder of a tranquil and domestic life souring his mood entirely. Questions well up in him; he wants to know what about his anecdote, specifically, had tugged his mood downward so. He wants to know if there's anything happier he remembers - any scraps from before his life had been yanked from him. He wants to know what his aspirations were then, he wants to know what he was like, what he dreamt of, what he wanted, who he knew.
Godfrey wants to help, and in the case of a man like Astarion, that's a detrimental urge to give in to. The more questions he asked, the further he would push him.
So, instead, he swallows them back and smiles. ]
There need not be anything at all. [ Godfrey picks himself up from his bedroll and draws a little closer. ] Restlessness without cause is just as much a detriment as the sort that leads your thoughts somewhere. I can make my presence a quieter one, if that would better suit you.
[ Astarion doesn't like the idea of sharing too much of himself.
It is easier to keep people at arm's length, to allow himself the distance. When your entire world is only for the purpose of seduction and murder, it because easier to make sure you never get too close to someone, that you never permit them to see behind the walls you put up. The notion of not having that measure of control over a situation is a little alarming for Astarion, who would much rather play the game of it than have anything real.
That's what he had thought for a long time, at least, but perhaps some things are beginning to change his mind.
There's surprise about the situation, that a Paladin hadn't simply culled him where he stood, that the revelation of him being a vampire spawn hadn't been enough to offer divine retribution, but he can be thankful for what little life he has that remains. Godfrey has not killed him yet, and that might well have to be enough for Astarion. Still, the possibility of a future, of becoming stronger, of being more... It is a heady desire to ignore, even if a small part of him thinks he should.
Shaking his head, Astarion hums absently, as if it doesn't matter at all. ]
It doesn't bother me at all. Sometimes it's quite nice to hear some voices in the silence. Ones that aren't screaming, anyway.
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[ Astarion is still adjusting to being awake during the sunlight hours and not ducking and covering at every single moment. Being able to see things in colour, being able to enjoy the warmth of the daylight without the single of fire is a gift in itself, and it makes him feel a little bit too close to happy for comfort. Perhaps things would be easier if he was able to go back to being a creature of the night - but that isn't what he wants. This is what he wants - freedom, joy, the experience of living once again.
He's seen Shadowheart and Lae'zel kneel and do whatever thoughts and prayers come to their mind, just as he had watched Godfrey make his own each morning. Another thing he struggles to wrap his mind around; do their Gods truly speak to them, and hear a response? When he had cried out for salvation, for freedom, for - anything, really, he had been ignored. Silence had greeted him as he wept, and he could only imagine that he deserved it.
Huffing a quiet chuckle, he makes himself more comfortable, turning his head to look at Godfrey properly. An intimidating man by all accounts, but Astarion finds himself less afraid these days. He can speak his mind a little more, tiptoe around conversations that cause irritation - like the heroics.
Ugh. ]
You're far better company.
[ Shaking his head, he hums idly. ]
Why don't you tell me something from home, then?
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And, really, that's something he ought to open up with Astarion too, at some point. Much noise had been made about Godfrey's trusting him - and even Godfrey himself could see why the decision might be perplexing. But Astarion had managed his thirst safely until his lapse; had he wanted, he's more aware than the others just how easily he could have drained them all as they slept, and he hadn't. That was enough for Godfrey to extend some clemency.
But on the neglected other half of this exchange sits Astarion, no doubt knowing exactly what the Morninglord had to say about vampires and undead. Eradication was to be the salvation of those like Astarion - stakes, holy water, smiting. His scripture was unavoidably clear; the only way Astarion's new ally could make the God to whom he had so openly devoted his life happy was to reduce him to ash, and now he knew it.
Surely holding his head under the riverwater as he prayed at dawn would have been safer for him than Godfrey with the full knowledge of who and what he is - but he had also extended his trust. It deserved just as much recognition, if not more.
He might have begun forming these important words, had Astarion not asked something unexpected - to hear stories of Godfrey's life. He supposes it's expected, and he's entitled to as much - Godfrey had taken enough of the stories of his companions and given little of his own. ]
I surely could. [ He nods amiably - and really, figures that he should have guessed that someone would be curious enough to probe him back after he had pried so much at them. ] Although I'm not sure that anything I could give you of my home would be terribly entertaining. My life until recent events has been wonderfully mundane.
[ ... the bits he's willing to share have been wonderfully mundane. Godfrey turns to lay on his side, his weight on one elbow instead of two, facing Astarion fully as he starts reaching through his memory. ]
I'm Baldurian, just as you are... and I was a priest.
[ If the tadpole hadn't given their companions that much, then they had surely smelled the cloth on him despite him giving it up - it had forever been the first guess of countryside farmers selling their wares in street markets.
So, as Astarion had trusted him with so much, Godfrey would in turn trust him with something new; ]
I was married, too, once.
[ Of the two people who had taken over his life, he thinks, Vladimir has a better chance of amusing than Iltha - delightful as she is to Godfrey, he can't be sure yet that Astarion will feel the same about tales of her young wildness and proclivity to say just what she shouldn't. By contrast, his husband with all of his stoicism and seriousness seemed as though he would have inherent comedy to Astarion.
So he glances down the edge of himself, thoughtful contours of his face caught by the glow of the campfire at his back, trying to call back his ghost.
Abruptly, he catches on to something, and he smiles, and he recounts his memory in a low and soft voice. ]
You know-- for a time, he had been trying very hard to learn Elvish. I had helped him find all of these books, and he spent so many weeks reading from them. Reciting syllables. Only - my Vladimir, he was... he grew up in the countryside, came to the city to learn a trade. He just had that very dour, rough way of speaking - the kind of man you couldn't imagine speaking in any other way. And I don't need to tell you, Elvish is such a musical language, light on the tongue.
[ Godfrey himself knows precious little Elvish beyond the basics, but has heard enough of it to know how the language sat in his husband's mouth - awkward, broad, deadly serious. All of the things about him that Godfrey had always been inescapably fond of. ]
'He drops the words like stones,' is what I heard an Elven neighbour of ours tell her brother after she heard him practicing.
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What does strike him is how little he can imagine it. Being married - being in love, even, choosing to devote his very long life to someone. The very notion is something senseless, not when he is well aware of his position in life. This is not the type of story that he is ever going to be able to write for himself, especially not if he fails in his quest for eternal freedom. Cazador remains a threat hanging over his head, and Astarion thinks...
Marriage. Happiness. A life, with a family, with love.
The last two hundred years have been completely without the majority of those things. One might describe his 'brothers' and 'sisters' as a family, but it isn't the same, is it now? They were sired together, perhaps, with a single master, or father, but it wasn't a choice. He did not ask to dig his way out of his own grave, did not ask to be used as a tool to summon food back for his master while being given nothing but rats. That is not the family he chose, and the reminder leaves a dead, sinking weight in his stomach as he frowns, staring at the stars.
The night used to be everything to him; when he could move, when he could slip away, the flickering hint of colour in alleys. Seeing the world in the light of day, with all the colours and brightness it has to offer... Perhaps he hates the night a little more, now.
Swallowing, he flexes his hands, not quite noticing how they were clenched until he came back to himself, tugged out of his thoughts by the sound of Godfrey's voice. It's soothing enough, Astarion thinks, and he focuses, not wanting to miss any of this. He had asked, after all. ]
It is a bit of a nuisance to learn, isn't it? Not usually fit for the tongue of the common folk. Or, well, country folk, perhaps.
[ Calling your friend(?)'s dead spouse "common" was hardly the way to earn eternal sanctuary from the threat of damnation, after all. Astarion speaks it well enough, but never bothered to use it - the others in camp didn't seem to have much concern for it. ]
But at least he tried. For you. That's... Sweet.
[ The word tastes wrong on his tongue, as if calling the effort of anyone sweet was poison. There's an air, now, of pained frustration settling on his shoulders, and he waves a hand to try and shrug it away. Now isn't the time to really trip into being morose; that will come later, when he is alone with thoughts and memories that seek to drown him. ]
He sounds perfectly charming.
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Or so Godfrey thinks. He had never asked him when he had the chance, and nor did he ever feel the need to. The marked maps he had found spoke plainly for themselves, regardless of what Vladimir could tell him. He had wanted to be ready if the day came that Iltha wanted to find her mother.
But even in this rare moment of happy reverie, he can see that something he said has pulled taut through Astarion. The petty correction is hardly worth upsetting the tenuous balance they've begun to strike - and nor is rising to that veiled unkindness he pays. Godfrey spent too long serving the underserved from his church to rise to every provocation he finds, and besides, he can't expect Astarion to have all respect for a man he never knew.
So instead, he smiles, and he nods along. ]
He certainly had his way.
[ Which is to say: charming or completely impossible, and you can't pick your poison because he chooses for you. ]
But-- surely it's no wont for stories of domesticity that has busied your thoughts. Perhaps you could share something of what has, and we can hope that I'll have thought of something better to share before we've talked it through.
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Many people do, or so I've heard.
[ The stars captivate him again, for a little while, and before he can get too lost in all his thoughts he tries to muster some kind of words. ]
Must there be something? When I look at the stars nothing in particular comes to mind. Simply the silence of a world that has rarely given any answer.
[ His expression flickers, and then he turns to look at Godfrey again, properly. ]
I don't have stories of husbands, or learning a language, or working in a church.
[ The notion of which makes his words curl with disdain. ]
Just what you already know.
[ The scrabbling of rats, hunger that never ends, his body under others with nothing but the darkness of a ceiling to keep him present in the moment. ]
sorry for the wait!!
His companions, on the whole, had been reticent where their pasts were concerned - and that was their right. He doesn't think any of them had Astarion's nervous and timid secrecy. It was something he'd thought he understood, once he'd learned one truth of him - of course he would be cagey and secretive of his past, lest someone discover his undeath.
Not that he'd expected that would be the complete end of it, as vampires so often left a trail of broken lives behind them. But there had been a sense of false understanding in him then; that this would be, perhaps, the biggest secret, and like a plug pulled, the rest might come more easily. Not so. Instead, it seemed to Godfrey that some new tragedy tangled there to stopper things again. There seemed to him a multitude of unfairness, of horrible sadness and trauma, almost too much to keep so neatly contained in such a body.
And it was, of course, his right to contain it all. Astarion owed him nothing - certainly not a look at what hurt him. But it has been a challenge to keep this barrier in place when he sees the pain so clearly as he does now - the mere reminder of a tranquil and domestic life souring his mood entirely. Questions well up in him; he wants to know what about his anecdote, specifically, had tugged his mood downward so. He wants to know if there's anything happier he remembers - any scraps from before his life had been yanked from him. He wants to know what his aspirations were then, he wants to know what he was like, what he dreamt of, what he wanted, who he knew.
Godfrey wants to help, and in the case of a man like Astarion, that's a detrimental urge to give in to. The more questions he asked, the further he would push him.
So, instead, he swallows them back and smiles. ]
There need not be anything at all. [ Godfrey picks himself up from his bedroll and draws a little closer. ] Restlessness without cause is just as much a detriment as the sort that leads your thoughts somewhere. I can make my presence a quieter one, if that would better suit you.
samesies, curse my lack of internet
It is easier to keep people at arm's length, to allow himself the distance. When your entire world is only for the purpose of seduction and murder, it because easier to make sure you never get too close to someone, that you never permit them to see behind the walls you put up. The notion of not having that measure of control over a situation is a little alarming for Astarion, who would much rather play the game of it than have anything real.
That's what he had thought for a long time, at least, but perhaps some things are beginning to change his mind.
There's surprise about the situation, that a Paladin hadn't simply culled him where he stood, that the revelation of him being a vampire spawn hadn't been enough to offer divine retribution, but he can be thankful for what little life he has that remains. Godfrey has not killed him yet, and that might well have to be enough for Astarion. Still, the possibility of a future, of becoming stronger, of being more... It is a heady desire to ignore, even if a small part of him thinks he should.
Shaking his head, Astarion hums absently, as if it doesn't matter at all. ]
It doesn't bother me at all. Sometimes it's quite nice to hear some voices in the silence. Ones that aren't screaming, anyway.