Astarion hesitates a little with the carrots, evidently worried about having his fingers bitten off. The horses are gentle, though, used to being hand-fed, and Astarion suppresses the urge to smile as they take the carrots from him. Luckily, he has a reason to frown soon after. "Snow?" he asks with a scowl, tone making it clear that he's going to bitch about being cold the entire time.
"Snow, all year 'round," Bull confirms. That's probably why they're called the Frostbacks, huh. He's gonna go repeat his nug-catching technique from the evening before to try and get a couple of squealing awful pink creatures.
In brand new information there's apparently a pulley elevator through the mountains so the Inquisition isn't climbing Everest every time they go home? Who knew. Let's pretend that's what Bull said too.
Presumably feeding the horses is about the extent of Astarion's contribution to camp life; Bull lets him eat his grisly meal while he gets his armour back on and packs the tent up.
The nugs are not exactly fine dining, but he's pleased by the support of his special dietary needs regardless. The ache for something more, something thinking is still there, but he does his best to try to smother it down. Maybe once they reach their destination he'll be able to sneak away and pick off somebody no one would miss.
He tosses the exsanguinated nug corpse on the ground, then approaches his horse again, awkwardly but gently petting its mane. After last time, he's fairly sure he could get on her back himself, but he finds himself impulsively saying, a little pompous and lordly, "Well, go on. You can help me up again."
"Oh, sure," Bull says, coming around to help. "Put your left foot in the stirrup, I'll give you a boost. Gonna put my hand on your leg," he says, a shade different to last time, a two second warning before he does it. "And up you go." Easily lifting Astarion so he has the clearance to swing his other leg over. Adjusts his posture a little this time too, trying to make the ride easier: "Just gonna touch your back - keep this straight. Imagine a string pulling from the top of your head. One straight line all the way down to the saddle. Relax your knees."
Horrifically, he's embarrassingly charmed that Bull remembers to warn him before touching. Just like he'd asked. He gets that strange sensation again, which he's beginning to identify as 'positive sentiment'. Very foreign.
"You're quite obliging, aren't you?" he says as he adjusts himself in the saddle, and even his hiked up chin can't hide that he's obviously happy about that fact. Being listened to and having his requests fulfilled for the first time in his life is kind of a high, actually. "I like that in a man."
He reaches over, pats Bull on the head the way he'd done to the horse. Teasingly, obviously. "Thank you for your service."
"You're welcome, your highness." Deeply wry, but he leans into the touch like a tamed animal. It's not — it's nice for it to be acknowledged, that's all. He should go get on his own horse, doesn't. Lingers and checks Astarion's sadlle straps. "You good? Gonna be a long, hard ride, but there's a bed and bath at the end of it."
Astarion snorts, then seems exasperated with himself, scoffing a little. Blaming Bull: "You can't say long, hard ride and expect me not to laugh." Honestly!!! What is he, made of stone?
A bed and a bath sounds nice, though. He tries not to get his hopes up for the water being warm, but— he already has. His hopefulness about the bed is a little lower, though. "So, what? They're going to put me in a dormitory with the rest of the lowly recruits?" Something dawns on him, eyes widening. "Tell me there's no bunk beds."
For once Bull wasn't being salacious, but he grins, his own coarse sense of humour delighted. Still grinning when Astarion gets horrified about communal living. "I'll tell Josie you're a visiting princess, get her to put you somewhere nice for a couple of days." Actually, he'll probably pull on her heartstrings until she accedes, but it's the same result. They always keep a couple of well-furnished rooms that sit empty in case of prestigious guests.
"It's a big castle," he adds with a shrug. "Just still kinda of in the process of reclaiming it, so people sleep all over the place — but hey, I bet they excavated the library wing while I was away."
A couple of days isn't much, and Astarion finds himself wondering what's going to become of him after that, but he tries not to think about it too deeply given that it makes him feel a bit anxious. He'll wing it, as he always does. Make himself indispensable. It's not like it'll be hard to kill people; he's been leading idiots to their deaths for two hundred years.
"Speaking of dusty old books," is the best segue he has. "I assume you have some cadre of wizards at your disposal, yes?" Or whatever they're called here. "I was hoping perhaps I might be able to speak to someone about my... sunlight intolerance."
Intolerance is putting it lightly. Bull has been surprisingly, impossibly cool about the rest of his vampiric qualities, so he decides to just say fuck it and tell him. "Well, intolerance might not be the right word. You see, I'll actually burn to a pile of cinders."
"Shit," Bull says, startled at how extreme that is but not anything more than that. Helps to have absolutely no cultural context for vampires, something that is gonna stay true for everyone Astarion meets here.
Anyway, he's pretty sure Astarion deliberately understated that, but he says, "I was thinking you'd just get sunburnt," like it was his misinterpretation, and moves on. Astarion's horse stamps her feet because Bull's idly leant too much of his weight on her, and he laughs and backs off. Circles around to mount up.
"But yeah, we have a whole army of "wizards", you can talk to a mage." They have too many mages, frankly. (Unbothered by Astaron's many quirks; still completely terrified of demons.) He mentally flicks through the options as he kicks the horses off. "Probably Solas is gonna ask you a bunch of questions about elfy stuff anyway." Elfy stuff like Astarion's conflagration problem, yes.
"Elfy stuff," Astarion repeats, grimacing. He has no idea what that means. Bonding over having pointy ears and being resistant to magical charming? Even if he were in any way connected to elven culture, he gets the feeling things are quite different here than they were in Faerûn. His mind wanders back to what Bull had said outside that farmhouse. "Such as ritual sacrifice? Mm, I'll pass."
He would never, ever ritually sacrifice anyone, obviously. Picture of innocence.
"Well... I suppose the rest of my issues can be dealt with once we've both rested and bathed." There's a low buzz of nervousness about the way things are going to go in Skyhold, but he's not about to ask Bull to hold his hand and tell him everything is going to be okay, so he doesn't bring it up at all. Instead, he sniffs. "You are beginning to smell a bit ripe."
"Yeah? You smell like horse," Bull retorts with a grin, completely impossible to embarrass on that front. Spent too long fighting battles in full armour in a humid climate.
"I do not," Astarion replies, unfortunately incredibly easy to goad. Waving Bull away: "Go get on your horse." When he does, Astarion lifts his collar and sniffs it self-consciously.
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In brand new information there's apparently a pulley elevator through the mountains so the Inquisition isn't climbing Everest every time they go home? Who knew. Let's pretend that's what Bull said too.
Presumably feeding the horses is about the extent of Astarion's contribution to camp life; Bull lets him eat his grisly meal while he gets his armour back on and packs the tent up.
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He tosses the exsanguinated nug corpse on the ground, then approaches his horse again, awkwardly but gently petting its mane. After last time, he's fairly sure he could get on her back himself, but he finds himself impulsively saying, a little pompous and lordly, "Well, go on. You can help me up again."
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"You're quite obliging, aren't you?" he says as he adjusts himself in the saddle, and even his hiked up chin can't hide that he's obviously happy about that fact. Being listened to and having his requests fulfilled for the first time in his life is kind of a high, actually. "I like that in a man."
He reaches over, pats Bull on the head the way he'd done to the horse. Teasingly, obviously. "Thank you for your service."
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A bed and a bath sounds nice, though. He tries not to get his hopes up for the water being warm, but— he already has. His hopefulness about the bed is a little lower, though. "So, what? They're going to put me in a dormitory with the rest of the lowly recruits?" Something dawns on him, eyes widening. "Tell me there's no bunk beds."
He really can't fucking do that again.
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"It's a big castle," he adds with a shrug. "Just still kinda of in the process of reclaiming it, so people sleep all over the place — but hey, I bet they excavated the library wing while I was away."
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"Speaking of dusty old books," is the best segue he has. "I assume you have some cadre of wizards at your disposal, yes?" Or whatever they're called here. "I was hoping perhaps I might be able to speak to someone about my... sunlight intolerance."
Intolerance is putting it lightly. Bull has been surprisingly, impossibly cool about the rest of his vampiric qualities, so he decides to just say fuck it and tell him. "Well, intolerance might not be the right word. You see, I'll actually burn to a pile of cinders."
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Anyway, he's pretty sure Astarion deliberately understated that, but he says, "I was thinking you'd just get sunburnt," like it was his misinterpretation, and moves on. Astarion's horse stamps her feet because Bull's idly leant too much of his weight on her, and he laughs and backs off. Circles around to mount up.
"But yeah, we have a whole army of "wizards", you can talk to a mage." They have too many mages, frankly. (Unbothered by Astaron's many quirks; still completely terrified of demons.) He mentally flicks through the options as he kicks the horses off. "Probably Solas is gonna ask you a bunch of questions about elfy stuff anyway." Elfy stuff like Astarion's conflagration problem, yes.
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He would never, ever ritually sacrifice anyone, obviously. Picture of innocence.
"Well... I suppose the rest of my issues can be dealt with once we've both rested and bathed." There's a low buzz of nervousness about the way things are going to go in Skyhold, but he's not about to ask Bull to hold his hand and tell him everything is going to be okay, so he doesn't bring it up at all. Instead, he sniffs. "You are beginning to smell a bit ripe."
He's just being mean.
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