PSL; OCTOBER VAMPIRE NONSENSE

[astarion]

(( well, he's back from the dead, and he's coming for your head! ))

Comments

[astarion]

[More and more useful, which is a good(?) thing for Maeve. To be presented more like a tool to be used, rather than a simple plaything to be used up.]

Oh, yes, so very simple. [Twisting, wry, very amused words. Been there, done that -- stopping the end of the world was great for a reputation boost, not to mention promised his continued survival in general. But that's so very several years ago. He'll have to ask their story on it someday, perhaps when his curiosity is not suddenly hinged on.]

And "HR" is...?

[I can't believe we're gotten to the point where Astarion Baldur's Gate is asking what an HR department is.]

[selfdissecting]

[ they wait for a few seconds.

but, no. he really is asking. ]

. . .Human Resources.

[astarion]

[LOOK AT HOW YE OLDE EVERYTHING IS, does it look like a Human Resource Department is a common thing in Baldur's Gate??

This doesn't precisely answer, well. Anything.]

Specifically for humans only?

[selfdissecting]

Um... mostly? I think so.

[ they remember the cadavers, but only in the abstract. a lot had been going on underneath the earth. ]

I didn't look that closely at the bodies. Sorry.

[astarion]

[Another laugh, sincerely amused but, as always, not particularly kind.]

Oh. Those kinds of resources. Wouldn’t I have loved to see that.

[Anyway!]

Well! You seem an interesting sort. I imagine you want to get back to your own plane, don’t you?

[selfdissecting]

[ —looking up sharply. not sharp in their gaze, but in speed. like the flash of a knife in the dark. their many strange eyes are all mostly... mournful. their heart aches, they think. they think it would, yes. ]

Yes. I need to go back.

[astarion]

[An eagerness to return. Yes, they very much would like to. He can use that.]

Then you should let me- [pressing that bleeding hand to his chest] -help you.

[selfdissecting]

[ now, now they step forward, pulling from the rosebushes without any concern to the thorns catching in their clothes. what are snags when compared to a promise? ]

You would do that? ...You can do that?

[astarion]

With enough time, darling, I'm certain I can whatever I like. Plus, you have me curious. And I'm not the sort of man to leave an opportunity skulking in his rosebushes, to fly off as soon as they've gotten a little spooked.

[selfdissecting]

[ it's noted. the words he chooses, very deliberately, to use; he's 'curious'. they are an 'opportunity'.

good. an opportunity doesn't get ignored. it's a purpose to fill, then, which goes a strangely long way towards calming them.

their lips lift in the vaguest of smiles. not 'happy'. more like 'accepting'. ]

Can I come out, in that case?

[astarion]

From the bushes?

[Ha, well, he certainly didn't intend on leaving them there, as he said.]

Of course. Perhaps you'd like even to come indoors.

[TO HIS LOOMING PALACE]

[selfdissecting]

[ Maeve's many-eyed gaze slides away from him—which is, perhaps, short-sighted of them—and towards the LOOMING PALACE. ]

Okay.