nibbling | open post pt. 2.

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."

He really can't fucking do that again.

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."

Edited (SENT TOO SOON) 2025-10-26 02:40 (UTC)

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."

He's just being mean.

"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.

It's time for a beautiful montage of horses carrying the two of them across the Ferelden fields. Bull does try to fill in any last bits of information Astarion might need, answers clarifying questions, but most of the time they ride too hard for conversation. Home is so close he can taste it in the air.

They make the caves with the elevator right as dawn is breaking, their horses foaming and stamping; Bull's in particular is struggling given his weight, and he hops off her as the platform is hoisted up through the dark shaft. Gives him something to keep his mind off the press of stone around them. The platform emerges inside one of the castle walls, where a soldier and a stablehand leap up from the bales of stray where they've been playing dice together. The girl takes their horses, but the young wannabe-Templar tells them he'll fetch the Inquisitor and dashes off; the morning light streams through the open doors, and Bull backs them off to a darker corner. "Let's sit tight," he says.

Inquisitor Lavellan is a slight elven woman with the get-it-done attitude of someone's nanny when she's on the job, though her stoicism breaks when she sees the Iron Bull, alive and no worse for wear. "Hey, boss, your face," is the first thing he says to her, and she raises her right hand self-consciously to her cheeks — the left is still afflicted with the anchor mark.

"Solas removed my Vallaslin," she admits, and then, "Oh, I am so glad you're alive, we really thought the worst." A glance to Astarion, his own lack of face markings, then back to Bull. "When Leliana got your bird, we weren't even sure ... I mean, it all sounds impossible."

"Tell me about it," Bull says. "Hey, is there a way into the castle from here without hitting daylight?"

Like this is a perfectly normal thing to be asked: "Of course," Lavellan says. "The passageways through the walls, and then you can duck into the lower level of the west wing and get just about anywhere. Might be a tight fit, Bull, you're like as to get your horns stuck."

"Yeah, yeah, look. Why don't you show Astarion through these passageways, put him up in that nice room you stick the Orlesians in, fix him up with an elfroot potion and a hot bath. Then come find me at the Herald's Rest. Krem'll be opening a cask of something. You can catch me up."

"Me? You're the one who went through one of the rifts!" Although, "I suppose there are a few things that happened in your absence you need to know about. But you know the War Table will expect a full report—"

"You got it, Boss." He isn't going to demean Astarion by treating him like a kid, glances at him: "I'll come find you once I've seen my guys."

Astarion has no idea what the fuck these two are talking about, but he gets the feeling that Bull might be important, actually? Interesting. He doesn't have too much time to dwell on that, though, because it's all really dawning on him that he's a complete fish out of water here. The same low thrum of anxiety he's been feeling flares up again, but he stamps it down. He'll deal with that once he's alone.

As if completely unbothered by the fact that Bull is about to leave him alone in a strange new world, he waves a hand. "Sure. Whatever. I mean, I'll probably already be terribly busy making my mark on Skyfold, but I guess I can pencil in a little time for you."

A pause. He's fucking miserable, aching so bad he's nearly gone numb, but— "...And might I say, dear Inquisitor, Bull left out how utterly fetching you are."

Look. It couldn't hurt to get off on a good foot.

Inquisitor Lavellan laughs, melodic. "Ah, he neglected to mention your charms — but one only gets so many words to a page, I suppose."

"Hey, I said he has a lot to offer," Bull says, but no, he is leaving this conversation, he's done, goodbye. Has to go have a touching reunion with Krem.

"I suppose we'll just see! This way —" She leads Astarion into the narrow passageways that line the walls of the keep, her step swift. "I should warn you, everybody's a touch on edge right now. We've spent the last year skirmishing with a rather powerful foe, and now we're gearing up to go finish the fight. You're welcome to wander, but you may find even our friendliest members a little — distracted. Tell you what, I'll set someone outside your door in case you need to send for anything."

Astarion's not sure if someone stationed outside his room is for his benefit or just to keep the strange elf from another plane contained until they know what to do with him. He looks at Bull for reassurance that he isn't making some face—but Bull seems rather distracted, ready to go, so he has to decide for himself. Bull trusts this woman, so he supposes he should, too. He doesn't have much other option.

"That sounds... lovely." Maybe. It'll have to be.

"Well! Ta-ta, then," he says to Bull, before gesturing for the Inquisitor to come with him. "Come along, darling, I've got quite a few elf-related questions for you."

Like what's with the ritual sacrifice thing, and what the hells is a Vallaslin?

Fresh off being dumped in the Fade by the same man who removed her Vallaslin markings, the Inquisitor is a little pained by elf-related questions and how often she has to cite Solas in answering them. It does leave her wide-open to flattery, however.

Lavellan also has the particular gift of offering someone her full attention even though she's doubtlessly busy with a dozen other things, so she lingers in Astarion's company even once she shows him to a small but lavishly appointed room. Has a few probing questions of her own: it's clear she has been informed that, and is fully ready to believe, he came back from some other world with the Iron Bull. After all, her own adventures in the rifts had carried her forward in time and into the Fade itself, why not to some whole new place?

But, belief doesn't mean trust. Lavellan is, as Astarion suspected, still putting a guard on his room under the barely-veiled excuse of a servant-cum-runner. Charter is also an elf, strawberry-blonde and freckled, aggressively boring to talk to and quite forgettable, seemingly content to lurk and listen outside Astarion's door until he has a need of her.

Over in the Herald's Rest, Bull is getting mobbed by his Chargers, who are overjoyed to see him alive. Casks are cracked open, and somewhere amidst the rowdy singing Bull has to try and explain that they'll probably be working with this elven rogue he's accidentally acquired ("No, Skinner, he's not from an Alienage like you — he's not Dalish, either, it's complicated.") Luckily half the Chargers were just plucked out of their own dire straits and adopted into the mercenary company so they could make something of themselves, and aren't gonna be weird about a new guy. Oops, all misfits!

Given he's fucked or fought alongside a good half of the Inquisition, it takes Iron Bull a while to shake off people pleased to see him alive while he picks his way back to the main castle and the living quarters. Here, on the eve of battle, tensions are high — two different soldiers confess they'd dreamt of him ravishing them, a serving girl reminisces about their afternoon together while he tries to extricate himself. After six months of being a "tiefling", he'd kind of forgotten what it was like to live in a place where most people see him as a dangerous sex object.

Charter nods at him as he approaches Astarion's door; she's only got three blades on her, he's pretty sure, so she's not here as an overt threat, but he still says, "Hey, job for you — get lost for a bit," as he knocks on the door.

Astarion deals with the anxiety of being dropped off in a new, unfamiliar place by ordering the woman outside his door to fetch him things until she gets annoyed with him and starts refusing. There's about three extra pillows, a blanket, a glass of water—none of which he actually needed, but it does feel good to tell someone what to do. When she finally grows irritated enough to start (politely, to be fair) declining his requests, he takes to wandering around the room instead.

In the past two hundred years, he's never once had a room to himself. It feels strange, almost a little empty. He flops on the bed, gets up, flops back down again; tests the feel of the pillows underneath his head; sits down in the desk chair and pretends to pen a fancy letter.

It's a lot of killing time, admittedly. When Bull finally knocks on his door, he opens it impatiently before immediately feigning nonchalance. "Oh, there you are," he says like he hasn't been waiting for the one thing in this world that's familiar to him to show up again. "Did you have fun with your— er, whatever it was that you were doing?"

"Big reunion. Everyone cried." He's being facetious, he doesn't look like he's been crying. He comes in, shuts the door behind him and leans back against it. "How're you doing, Astarion."

It's still strange, being asked things like how are you doing. He wonders if this is just the culture in whatever the fuck this world is called, actually caring about how other people are. Weird.

"Fine," he sniffs. "...Well." Not 'fine', exactly. He's always been neurotic by nature, and although he couldn't be happier to be out of Cazador's reach, it's all so sudden. He barely knows what to do with himself now that his every thought and movement isn't being controlled and monitored. "I do have a few complaints. The bed is too soft, and the chair is too hard. And don't get me started on the pillows."

It's all perfectly acceptable, actually, but he has to have somewhere to put this nervous energy.

"The... five pillows," Bull says skeptically, Astarion's requests having increased the amount of pillows in the room to ludicrous levels. "Hey, I'd offer to trade, but my room has some pretty sizeable holes in it, you'd just." He makes a gesture with his hand, fingers together and then apart, fwoo noise like a flame igniting. "Maybe once we've fixed that." Smiling to himself. There's like, ten other reasons Astarion wouldn't want to trade, starting with the fact that Bull's bed is just kind of planted in a throughway instead of a room at all.

"Mm," Astarion says, making a face. Holes??? Even his dormitory back at Cazador's didn't have holes. "How charmingly dilapidated."

Eugh. He perches on the very edge of the mattress, legs stretched out in front of him as he tests the softness with a hand. "I'm sure it's all just going to take some... getting used to." All of it. The bed, the chair, being left alone for once in his life. "Besides, by this time tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be the talk of the fortress, and then I'll have invitations to any room I like."

"No kidding." Bull takes a couple steps forward, leans his forearms on the back of the too-hard chair instead of sitting in it. "Eve of war, people get impulsive and needy. You're not gonna find it hard to make," a little flutter of his hand. "New friends. If you're looking."

Astarion makes an offended expression, scrunching up his nose. "I'll have you know that I don't need impulsivity and neediness to make new friends," he shoots back. His face does all the hard work for him, thanks. But he's not actually very interested in making 'new friends' beyond what said friends can do for him, so he doesn't bristle too much.

"I didn't realize that all of that nasty battle business was still ongoing." Which is probably his fault for only sort of listening when Bull talked about it, but he refuses to take the blame.

"Yeah." Drawled enough that it's almost kind of a yugh. "Way bigger deal than since I was last here. Apparently I missed some shit. Hey, sorry in advance if the world ends, kind of an asshole move." Bringing Astarion somewhere that might be about to be ruled by a demented ancient magister, or torn apart by rifts, or whatever.

He makes an even worse face. "Yes, it would be rather an asshole move, wouldn't it?" he asks with a pointed glare, although it's hard to get too upset about it. Even if the world ends, at least he will have remembered what it feels like not to have someone's claws dug into his brain. "I suppose it's still better than the alternative."

Then, curiously: "Are you going to be participating, then?" In the battle, or whatever. Astarion still doesn't understand what the plan of action here is, but clearly there's some sort of scuffle coming up in the near future. "Do try not to die. That would be..." Hm. "Annoying for me."

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