It's always reassuringly easy to wake Bull; he can look like he's sleeping cartoonishly deep and yet, with a nudge or a cleared throat or even too long a gaze and his eye opens again like he was faking it the whole time.
The sky is still all pinks and purples so their tour starts inside Skyhold: the Throne Room (busy) and the War Room (busier), up and down the atrium, vague gestures to corridors that lead to the sleeping quarters, or stairs leading down to the wine cellars, the dungeons, the Undercroft. Bull is kind of enjoying revisiting the place and showing it off at the same time; it's been months, and there's been a lot of renovations, scaffolding removed and rubble cleared away.
Through the kitchen into the night, redolent with the sounds and smells of the army roasting their dinner around the cookfires outside their tents. Not to mention the sights and smells of the stables, where Astarion can be reunited with the horse he rode in on, and Bull makes big Will Smith Presenting My Wife arms at his usual Dracolisk mount as she tries to bite his fingers off with her awful lizardy teeth.
All the while, people stop Bull to talk to him — quick reunions, passing gossip, innuendo, whatever. He introduces "My friend, Astarion," each time, with various levels of threatening emphasis on friend depending on how racist against elves any given person is.
Astarion doesn't really pick up on the subtle 'don't-be-racist' threatening, because despite the fact that Bull has informed him of anti-elf sentiment several times, it's still difficult to grasp. High elves are used to being the ones who look down on others, not the other way around. So, regardless of who Bull is introducing to him, he holds out a limp-wristed hand like he half-expects them to kiss it rather than shake it and says, "Charmed."
When the sweet little dwarf scout he's just met scurries away down the hall, Astarion puts his hands on his hips and regards Bull with a contemplative look. "You're very popular, aren't you?" Understandable, really, given his easygoing personality, but it's kind of annoying. He was hoping Bull wouldn't have anything more important to focus on than helping him, but it's becoming quickly obvious that isn't the case.
"The more people who like me, the less that might try to kill me," Bull points out evenly. He is a little uncharitably surprised at how many of the Inquisitor's inner circle have affected genuine relief and pleasure to see him back safe, though. "But yeah, I know a lot of people." People are mostly easy, he finds. Except Astarion.
"They'd be very stupid to try to kill you," Astarion points out, not because of Bull's talent in combat but because of his natural advantages. Sucking up to other people so they won't hurt you is something for regular people, like Astarion. Bull is big (lengthwise and widthwise) and strong; he doesn't need to kowtow. It's something Astarion is incredibly jealous of, in fact.
Another thing he's jealous of is the fact that Bull doesn't feel the urge to kill and drain people, something which has been steadily growing with each new face introduced. He keeps hoping Bull will say something that would easily excuse their murder, but not yet. Astarion scratches his cheek.
"—I don't suppose there are any horses back in that stable that the Inquisition wouldn't miss."
"Planning to go for another ride?" Bull asks with a half-smile, leaning his shoulder against the wall as he looks down at Astarion.
"I've been thinking," he admits, "What we're gonna do about your diet. If the kitchen switches to ordering live pigs from Haven, we set up a tent where you can uh, bleed them, then the butcher can use the meat. Depends on how much you need, and how often."
Strangely, Astarion sort of likes being the recipient of that little half-smile. Immediately, he starts scheming about how he can receive it again.
"I don't know, exactly," he admits. "I mean—" He crosses his arms, debating on whether or not to share this. Maybe he should just lie and say that he'll turn into a fine dust if not fed the equivalent of a whole bear every day. "I can survive on quite little, but I'm certain I would be of more use to all of you if I were to be more nourished." So, the more pigs the better. "The hunger can be quite. Distracting."
"Okay. I can swing of more use for," a gesture, vague in the air, to imply Josephine's dominion over their accounts payable, "The requisitioning of pigs." He figures the soldiers probably spitroast a lot pork every night, maybe some goat, lamb — it's more about finding the space to pen live animals up here than the increase in cost. But surely they won't need that many. How much can one li'l elf really eat?
"Can always get you some cold weather gear and set you loose on the mountain — I'm kidding." Holding his hand up to forestall the obvious incoming indignation, grinning at his own shitty joke. "Kidding. What I mean is, we'll figure it out. Shame we can't just feed you the prisoners."
Oh, now that half-smile has been completely pushed out of his mind, because there's other, more important things he'd like to be the recipient of. "You keep prisoners here?" he asks, trying not to sound too excited. Like he's not salivating a little already. "Horrible, awful ones, I presume, who it would be doing the world a favor to, erm, remove—?"
Not that he really cares about the moral fiber of whoever he kills, but he'd prefer to stay on the Inquisition's good side at least until they've solved this sunlight issue.
Interesting. "So it doesn't just have to be animals." Way more than demon shit, that's, as best his Northern ass understands it, Darkspawny. Ghouls and revenants hungry for the living.
Gives Bull some weird cognitive dissonance to think about Astarion like that, so he puts aside that little revelation and shifts immediately to talking about the prisoners. "The boss stands in divine judgement of those who commit crimes against Thedas, and she picks execution way less often than I'd like. Rest of them usually end up in the cells. Been a while, so I don't know who exactly's in there now."
'Divine judgment' sounds pretty hinky to him, especially since the Inquisitor had just seemed like a regular elf. He'd thought that she was just an army commander of some kind, but apparently her role is a bit more... spiritual than previously thought. (Oh, gods, he really hopes he didn't just wander into a community of religious nutjobs.)
But he'll have to ask Bull about that later. For now, he has only one priority. Bull has yet again surpassed his expectations by seemingly not giving a shit about his eccentricities, but now that he knows that's a Bull-specific trait instead of everyone in Thedas just being really cool about a lot of stuff, he lowers his voice.
"Does that mean the prisoners aren't, ah—" As unbothered as Bull seems to be by this, he still doesn't want to sound too grisly. "On the menu?"
Bull's jaw shifts, quite a moment as he thinks over some ramifications, weighs up consequences. Hard to do anything properly secret in Skyhold, and Astarion is new, needs to keep his head down. But also the neatness of the solution really calls to him.
"We can go look," he decides, since it's been six months, he doesn't know who they're holding. Straightens up off the wall so they can head back to the dungeon entrance, opposite the Herald's Rest, where Maryden's singing spills out into the night. "Just look, tonight. Though if we're still holding Alexius... nobody's gonna shed a tear if he turns up dead." He'd thought about doing it himself, for those he lost on Seheron if nothing else, but unfortunately it's just not in him to ignore the Inuqisitor's decisions, however much he disagrees with them.
Glances over to Astarion, still calculating — thinking about the other Venatori, the ones not behind bars. "Do you have to kill them? Is that part of it?"
Astarion brightens at look, then darkens at just look. Bull has just done the equivalent of waving a juicy steak in front of a hungry dog's face. Still, being allowed to look is one step closer to being allowed to bite, so he follows behind Bull with an excited new spring in his step.
The question, though— "Ah." How to answer that? "I'm not— I don't exactly—" He clears his throat. "That is to say, this will be my... first time. With a person."
A thinking creature. The nugs had been a step up from rats, but he knows what he really longs for. Maybe it's a natural vampiric impulse to want blood from an intelligent creature, or maybe it's just a natural Astarion impulse to covet what he's been denied.
"I'm sure I could try." Not to kill his meal, he means. He waffles for a moment, trying to decide if he wants to share this next tidbit with Bull or not. He has been extraordinarily trustworthy through all of this. Not just nice, but good. So, although he's a bit anxious about sharing, Astarion says, "It's just that once I start, I'm not sure I'll be able"—or willing—"to stop."
Bull snorts at first time, but he's somewhat relieved that Astarion isn't actually an experienced man-eater, so to speak. Maybe they shouldn't go down that road at all, but he'd seemed so perked up by the idea. And it's probably becoming growingly clear: Bull isn't adverse to killing people — so long as they're the right people. Or more accurately, not someone he thinks of as "people" at all.
"Yeah? Don't sell yourself short," Bull says. "If it's just a matter of willpower, you'll be fine." They pass the edge of a campfire's circle of light, not sneaking but quiet so close to the soldiers, and then into the landing at the top of the stairs. Bull takes two steps down and pauses, looking back up at the silhouette of Astarion behind him. "I just figured, you know, if we can't nail down anything tonight I could uh. Volunteer."
"Oh," Astarion says lamely, because he certainly hadn't expected a donation. Maybe it's because Bull has no concept of 'evil bloodsucking creatures who just want to kill you'. Or maybe even if he did, he'd just be that selfless anyway. Because it is selfless—there's no benefit for Bull and seemingly a million drawbacks. Then again, that's sort of how Astarion feels like simply interacting with himself is like, and Bull hasn't stopped doing that yet. Again, very selfless.
"You would have quite a lot of blood to spare."
Of course, the idea of getting to sink his fangs into a real, live person makes him feel incredibly distracted, mouth watering. But he's not as sure of his willpower as Bull seems to be, and not only would accidentally killing him be an emotional clusterfuck, but Astarion's pretty sure the Inquisitor would pick execution for him.
"But it might..." Go really, really badly. "Hurt."
"Yeah, that's probably lowest on my list of concerns about it," Bull says. His relationship with pain is complicated and multi-faceted. It's at the basis of how he fights, how he moves through space, and deeply entwined with his sexuality. That last thing's a little higher on the list of concerns.
Like this, a couple stairs between them, eye contact should be easier, but his gaze is off past Astarion's shoulder and up the stairs as if he's making sure nobody's close enough to hear this. "I can handle pain. Under the right circumstances I'm into it. But it's intimate as shit, so." A shrug, gaze coming back to Astarion's face.
Um, he was not expecting the casual reveal that Bull is apparently a masochist. Interesting, he thinks, before shoving whatever curiosity that is way, way down.
Really, he's not sure what he's supposed to do with this information. Is blood-drinking intimate? He'd never considered it to be so, but he's also always imagined someone dying at the end. Just a bigger nug. He's never once imagined a scenario in which he sunk his fangs into somebody that would survive it, what it would feel like looking someone in the eye while knowing their blood is on his tongue. It's not exactly a turn-on, but it does conjure up a strange feeling he can't name.
"We'll cross that long, hard bridge when we get to it," he says flippantly, then hard-pivots. "Who's Alexios?" Alexius—Bull had mentioned him briefly, sounded more than a little resentful. "Perhaps he might be on the menu."
"Corypheus, the guy everyone's gearing up to go fight, has a whole cult of Tevinter supremacists." He's taking off down the stairs again. "Alexius is one of 'em."
They hit the bottom of the stairs and are intercepted by the antsy young guard on duty; Bull explains the Inquistor asked him to go question the prisoners about Corypheus one last time.
The cells are slim pickings after Orlais has remanded two prisoners: Ser Ruth in the closest, reading a book on her bed, her cell the only one with creature comforts as she's the only one willingly serving her sentence. Bull ignores her, turns to the cell opposite.
"Raleigh Samson," he says in a low voice to Astarion; the man currently twitching and sweating through lyrium withdrawal can barely focus his eyes enough to acknowledge him. "Corypheus' right hand man. Inquisitor must have decided he might have information." Or maybe Samson's survival is a favour to Cullen, Bull vaguely remembers they knew each other in Kirkwall. Those are the only reasons he can think not to just kill the pathetic bastard.
Further up, two empty cells away from the others, is Gereon Alexius, who rises to his feet at the sight of the Iron Bull and comes right up to the bars. He's been here months, angry and grieving his son, and even Dorian's visitations haven't stopped him from becoming a gaunt shell of himself. "Hissrad," he sneers. "Someone told me you were dead."
"Yeah, you'd love that," Bull says, leaning his shoulders back against the cell bars opposite and folding his arms.
"It's nothing personal," Alexius says with intent zeal. "You are simply the first symptom of an oncoming disease. If the Inquisitor understood the threat you ox-men pose to the South, she would have you rotting down here alongside me. The Inquisition would be marching North to join Tevinter in wiping your grey plague from our shores."
Bull gives Astarion a look like, get a load of this guy.
Astarion stands there, staring blankly. There's very little he understands about the dynamics going on right now; what threat to the south? What even is in the south? All of the political nonsense goes right over his head, but what he does understand is that this Alexius fellow is being extremely rude and rather racist.
Now, admittedly, he's generally not one to care about a little light prejudice. Everyone is prejudiced! It would be ridiculous to get one's panties in a twist over some bias that, honestly, is probably deserved. But Bull is his friend, and therefore one of the very few people in the world that Astarion has decided matter, so:
"I don't want to hear anything out of someone sporting that goatee." Fucking hideous, honestly. He leans casually against the bars of Alexius's cell, peering inside like a child tapping on the glass of a goldfish's bowl. "Mm, yes, I could kill him. I'm sure nothing of value will be lost."
"You may want to remind the knife-ears that his precious Inquisitor already decided my fate," Alexius sneers, just in case Astarion had forgotten that racism in Thedas also includes elves.
"Hear that, Astarion," Bull says, glancing back towards where the guard was. "We'll have to be sneaky."
"Wait," says Alexius, suddenly nervous, backing away from the bars. "Now hang on."
Astarion's not certain whether this is all just to fuck with Alexius or if Bull really does intend to let him do a murder, Inquisitor be damned, but— either way, it's wonderful having someone be scared and helpless and, most importantly, not him. It sends a little thrill of power through him; it's the first time in a long time he's ever felt something like that.
"You were very rude to my friend," he says sternly. "Positively indecorous. But perhaps if you beg, he might take pity on you." It is abundantly clear that he's enjoying this spontaneous power trip a bit too much. "Or not. I guess there's only one way to find out."
Alexius looks at Astarion properly then, sneers at him with patriarchal scorn, his Magister accent over-affected when he says, "I will not beg clemency from a savage and a beast." Hard to say which he thinks is which. "Nor would I expect you to respect the rule of law—"
"Real nice," Bull says flatly. Studying the former Magister, his tense jaw and clenched fists, scared of death but so tired of living in a cell, in a world which holds nothing for him. Bull can read him like a book - can't really work up any sympathy, though, for one of the guys that had wanted to obliterate his people, willingly sided with Corypheus to do so.
Bull taps a fist over his lips thoughtfully, clicking his teeth. His sole hesitation now is if this going to get Astarion in bad trouble. There's three other people in here, the guard and two prisoners; Samson's in no fit state to witness anything, but Ser Ruth's an unknown variable. Catching a light hold of Astarion's upper arm to draw him away from the Magister's cell: "Let's make a plan."
Holy shit. He's surprised for only a moment before he lets excitement overtake him instead, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in eagerness. Yes, this is everything he's ever wanted and was never able to have—all the better that it involves murdering some megalomaniac patriarch. Bull is officially his favorite person in existence, although it's not like he has a lot of competition.
"I was thinking we open the door, you hold his arms back, and I sink my fangs into him while he cries out for his mother."
It might not be a good plan, but it's definitely a plan.
"Okay," says Bull, kinda charmed by Astarion's wicked glee but not charmed enough to be stupid about this, "And then - assuming you can even pick the lock, the guard comes to see what's going on, then runs off to report you drinking blood."
Or this goes the way it did in the bank vaults, and they have to hide a body or risk Astarion ending up in one of these cells.
Bull walks them back by the guard station, gets a good look, and pauses them on the stairs again with his voice barely a whisper. "I can go back and distract him. Can you lift his keys? Then you gotta subdue Alexius — he can't cast down here, he's weak as shit — and try and make it look like he killed himself." Looking at Astarion with that serious I believe in you face he gets.
Gods, this is already too much planning. It's obvious in the way he's not just excited now, but growing quickly impatient, restless. That stray dog with the steak being dangled in front of him again. He shifts back and forth on his feet, aware on a rational level that, yes, they should be careful about this— but on an emotional, instinctual level, all he really wants to do is pick the lock to that cell and latch on to Alexi-whoever's neck.
But he does like being the recipient of that I believe in you face, even if it makes him a little queasy, too, so he does his best to clamp the urge down.
"Of course I can lift his keys," is the first thing Astarion says, a little offended: you doubt me? The next thing he says: "Is he supposed to have killed himself with two tiny stabs to the throat?"
Someone's going to notice, right? And even if Astarion manages to drink every drop that he can, it's still bound to be a little messy. There'll be blood coming from his neck, no way to avoid it.
"Perhaps I could— slit it, afterwards. To hide the bite marks." Where they're going to say Alexius got a knife, he hasn't yet figured out. That's detail work.
Bull thinks about it, but he's nodding. "That could work," he agrees, slow. "If it was something more unconventional." He's thinking the same as Astarion, a blade is hard to excuse, a huge fuck-up... but the cell wasn't completely empty, either. "Maybe someone slipped up and left a fork with his food." More believable, leaves tiny holes, and could conceivably be used in a suicide. Possibly. If someone was really determined.
"But then we have to go find a goddamn fork," he concludes with a sigh.
Could they frame one of the other prisoners? Samson would have motive, but he's too much of a wild card. Can they heal the bite? Bull still has a potion tucked away, but that just risks healing Alexius and getting tattled on by a goddamn ex-Magister. He leans on the stairwell wall, still thinking.
It's real obvious he's wavering on if this is possible to do safely, which probably isn't good news for Astarion getting to try human blood for the first time.
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The sky is still all pinks and purples so their tour starts inside Skyhold: the Throne Room (busy) and the War Room (busier), up and down the atrium, vague gestures to corridors that lead to the sleeping quarters, or stairs leading down to the wine cellars, the dungeons, the Undercroft. Bull is kind of enjoying revisiting the place and showing it off at the same time; it's been months, and there's been a lot of renovations, scaffolding removed and rubble cleared away.
Through the kitchen into the night, redolent with the sounds and smells of the army roasting their dinner around the cookfires outside their tents. Not to mention the sights and smells of the stables, where Astarion can be reunited with the horse he rode in on, and Bull makes big Will Smith Presenting My Wife arms at his usual Dracolisk mount as she tries to bite his fingers off with her awful lizardy teeth.
All the while, people stop Bull to talk to him — quick reunions, passing gossip, innuendo, whatever. He introduces "My friend, Astarion," each time, with various levels of threatening emphasis on friend depending on how racist against elves any given person is.
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When the sweet little dwarf scout he's just met scurries away down the hall, Astarion puts his hands on his hips and regards Bull with a contemplative look. "You're very popular, aren't you?" Understandable, really, given his easygoing personality, but it's kind of annoying. He was hoping Bull wouldn't have anything more important to focus on than helping him, but it's becoming quickly obvious that isn't the case.
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Another thing he's jealous of is the fact that Bull doesn't feel the urge to kill and drain people, something which has been steadily growing with each new face introduced. He keeps hoping Bull will say something that would easily excuse their murder, but not yet. Astarion scratches his cheek.
"—I don't suppose there are any horses back in that stable that the Inquisition wouldn't miss."
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"I've been thinking," he admits, "What we're gonna do about your diet. If the kitchen switches to ordering live pigs from Haven, we set up a tent where you can uh, bleed them, then the butcher can use the meat. Depends on how much you need, and how often."
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"I don't know, exactly," he admits. "I mean—" He crosses his arms, debating on whether or not to share this. Maybe he should just lie and say that he'll turn into a fine dust if not fed the equivalent of a whole bear every day. "I can survive on quite little, but I'm certain I would be of more use to all of you if I were to be more nourished." So, the more pigs the better. "The hunger can be quite. Distracting."
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"Can always get you some cold weather gear and set you loose on the mountain — I'm kidding." Holding his hand up to forestall the obvious incoming indignation, grinning at his own shitty joke. "Kidding. What I mean is, we'll figure it out. Shame we can't just feed you the prisoners."
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Not that he really cares about the moral fiber of whoever he kills, but he'd prefer to stay on the Inquisition's good side at least until they've solved this sunlight issue.
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Gives Bull some weird cognitive dissonance to think about Astarion like that, so he puts aside that little revelation and shifts immediately to talking about the prisoners. "The boss stands in divine judgement of those who commit crimes against Thedas, and she picks execution way less often than I'd like. Rest of them usually end up in the cells. Been a while, so I don't know who exactly's in there now."
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But he'll have to ask Bull about that later. For now, he has only one priority. Bull has yet again surpassed his expectations by seemingly not giving a shit about his eccentricities, but now that he knows that's a Bull-specific trait instead of everyone in Thedas just being really cool about a lot of stuff, he lowers his voice.
"Does that mean the prisoners aren't, ah—" As unbothered as Bull seems to be by this, he still doesn't want to sound too grisly. "On the menu?"
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"We can go look," he decides, since it's been six months, he doesn't know who they're holding. Straightens up off the wall so they can head back to the dungeon entrance, opposite the Herald's Rest, where Maryden's singing spills out into the night. "Just look, tonight. Though if we're still holding Alexius... nobody's gonna shed a tear if he turns up dead." He'd thought about doing it himself, for those he lost on Seheron if nothing else, but unfortunately it's just not in him to ignore the Inuqisitor's decisions, however much he disagrees with them.
Glances over to Astarion, still calculating — thinking about the other Venatori, the ones not behind bars. "Do you have to kill them? Is that part of it?"
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The question, though— "Ah." How to answer that? "I'm not— I don't exactly—" He clears his throat. "That is to say, this will be my... first time. With a person."
A thinking creature. The nugs had been a step up from rats, but he knows what he really longs for. Maybe it's a natural vampiric impulse to want blood from an intelligent creature, or maybe it's just a natural Astarion impulse to covet what he's been denied.
"I'm sure I could try." Not to kill his meal, he means. He waffles for a moment, trying to decide if he wants to share this next tidbit with Bull or not. He has been extraordinarily trustworthy through all of this. Not just nice, but good. So, although he's a bit anxious about sharing, Astarion says, "It's just that once I start, I'm not sure I'll be able"—or willing—"to stop."
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"Yeah? Don't sell yourself short," Bull says. "If it's just a matter of willpower, you'll be fine." They pass the edge of a campfire's circle of light, not sneaking but quiet so close to the soldiers, and then into the landing at the top of the stairs. Bull takes two steps down and pauses, looking back up at the silhouette of Astarion behind him. "I just figured, you know, if we can't nail down anything tonight I could uh. Volunteer."
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"You would have quite a lot of blood to spare."
Of course, the idea of getting to sink his fangs into a real, live person makes him feel incredibly distracted, mouth watering. But he's not as sure of his willpower as Bull seems to be, and not only would accidentally killing him be an emotional clusterfuck, but Astarion's pretty sure the Inquisitor would pick execution for him.
"But it might..." Go really, really badly. "Hurt."
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Like this, a couple stairs between them, eye contact should be easier, but his gaze is off past Astarion's shoulder and up the stairs as if he's making sure nobody's close enough to hear this. "I can handle pain. Under the right circumstances I'm into it. But it's intimate as shit, so." A shrug, gaze coming back to Astarion's face.
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Really, he's not sure what he's supposed to do with this information. Is blood-drinking intimate? He'd never considered it to be so, but he's also always imagined someone dying at the end. Just a bigger nug. He's never once imagined a scenario in which he sunk his fangs into somebody that would survive it, what it would feel like looking someone in the eye while knowing their blood is on his tongue. It's not exactly a turn-on, but it does conjure up a strange feeling he can't name.
"We'll cross that long, hard bridge when we get to it," he says flippantly, then hard-pivots. "Who's Alexios?" Alexius—Bull had mentioned him briefly, sounded more than a little resentful. "Perhaps he might be on the menu."
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They hit the bottom of the stairs and are intercepted by the antsy young guard on duty; Bull explains the Inquistor asked him to go question the prisoners about Corypheus one last time.
The cells are slim pickings after Orlais has remanded two prisoners: Ser Ruth in the closest, reading a book on her bed, her cell the only one with creature comforts as she's the only one willingly serving her sentence. Bull ignores her, turns to the cell opposite.
"Raleigh Samson," he says in a low voice to Astarion; the man currently twitching and sweating through lyrium withdrawal can barely focus his eyes enough to acknowledge him. "Corypheus' right hand man. Inquisitor must have decided he might have information." Or maybe Samson's survival is a favour to Cullen, Bull vaguely remembers they knew each other in Kirkwall. Those are the only reasons he can think not to just kill the pathetic bastard.
Further up, two empty cells away from the others, is Gereon Alexius, who rises to his feet at the sight of the Iron Bull and comes right up to the bars. He's been here months, angry and grieving his son, and even Dorian's visitations haven't stopped him from becoming a gaunt shell of himself. "Hissrad," he sneers. "Someone told me you were dead."
"Yeah, you'd love that," Bull says, leaning his shoulders back against the cell bars opposite and folding his arms.
"It's nothing personal," Alexius says with intent zeal. "You are simply the first symptom of an oncoming disease. If the Inquisitor understood the threat you ox-men pose to the South, she would have you rotting down here alongside me. The Inquisition would be marching North to join Tevinter in wiping your grey plague from our shores."
Bull gives Astarion a look like, get a load of this guy.
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Now, admittedly, he's generally not one to care about a little light prejudice. Everyone is prejudiced! It would be ridiculous to get one's panties in a twist over some bias that, honestly, is probably deserved. But Bull is his friend, and therefore one of the very few people in the world that Astarion has decided matter, so:
"I don't want to hear anything out of someone sporting that goatee." Fucking hideous, honestly. He leans casually against the bars of Alexius's cell, peering inside like a child tapping on the glass of a goldfish's bowl. "Mm, yes, I could kill him. I'm sure nothing of value will be lost."
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"Hear that, Astarion," Bull says, glancing back towards where the guard was. "We'll have to be sneaky."
"Wait," says Alexius, suddenly nervous, backing away from the bars. "Now hang on."
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"You were very rude to my friend," he says sternly. "Positively indecorous. But perhaps if you beg, he might take pity on you." It is abundantly clear that he's enjoying this spontaneous power trip a bit too much. "Or not. I guess there's only one way to find out."
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"Real nice," Bull says flatly. Studying the former Magister, his tense jaw and clenched fists, scared of death but so tired of living in a cell, in a world which holds nothing for him. Bull can read him like a book - can't really work up any sympathy, though, for one of the guys that had wanted to obliterate his people, willingly sided with Corypheus to do so.
Bull taps a fist over his lips thoughtfully, clicking his teeth. His sole hesitation now is if this going to get Astarion in bad trouble. There's three other people in here, the guard and two prisoners; Samson's in no fit state to witness anything, but Ser Ruth's an unknown variable. Catching a light hold of Astarion's upper arm to draw him away from the Magister's cell: "Let's make a plan."
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Holy shit. He's surprised for only a moment before he lets excitement overtake him instead, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in eagerness. Yes, this is everything he's ever wanted and was never able to have—all the better that it involves murdering some megalomaniac patriarch. Bull is officially his favorite person in existence, although it's not like he has a lot of competition.
"I was thinking we open the door, you hold his arms back, and I sink my fangs into him while he cries out for his mother."
It might not be a good plan, but it's definitely a plan.
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Or this goes the way it did in the bank vaults, and they have to hide a body or risk Astarion ending up in one of these cells.
Bull walks them back by the guard station, gets a good look, and pauses them on the stairs again with his voice barely a whisper. "I can go back and distract him. Can you lift his keys? Then you gotta subdue Alexius — he can't cast down here, he's weak as shit — and try and make it look like he killed himself." Looking at Astarion with that serious I believe in you face he gets.
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But he does like being the recipient of that I believe in you face, even if it makes him a little queasy, too, so he does his best to clamp the urge down.
"Of course I can lift his keys," is the first thing Astarion says, a little offended: you doubt me? The next thing he says: "Is he supposed to have killed himself with two tiny stabs to the throat?"
Someone's going to notice, right? And even if Astarion manages to drink every drop that he can, it's still bound to be a little messy. There'll be blood coming from his neck, no way to avoid it.
"Perhaps I could— slit it, afterwards. To hide the bite marks." Where they're going to say Alexius got a knife, he hasn't yet figured out. That's detail work.
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"But then we have to go find a goddamn fork," he concludes with a sigh.
Could they frame one of the other prisoners? Samson would have motive, but he's too much of a wild card. Can they heal the bite? Bull still has a potion tucked away, but that just risks healing Alexius and getting tattled on by a goddamn ex-Magister. He leans on the stairwell wall, still thinking.
It's real obvious he's wavering on if this is possible to do safely, which probably isn't good news for Astarion getting to try human blood for the first time.
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