// smile like you mean it //
“Danta is as old as I am. And there is another that is older than even we are.” He informs her with a slight quirk of the corner of his lip. “I do not know of any others from then or before other than us.” Not that he met all of the Ancients in Caido, of course. But he has a good feeling a majority of them are ex-Ascended.
But the moment shifts and Astaroth finds himself far more of a comforting figure than anything else in this moment, allowing her the time without judgment to regain her voice, to speak when she is ready and to offer his own because she’d started the conversation. So as she readjusts and speaks in as quiet of a voice as he’s ever heard from her, the butcher’s hands return to his shirt more fully while her own stay just shy of running along the marred scar tissue.
Meeting her green tinged aqua eyes in the firelight, his fingers continue to unbutton until he can sweep away the red fabric, revealing the entirety of the marred scar tissue that criss crosses along his torso and up along toward his shoulders, scarred and healed so poorly that the edges are raised and hardened over muscle. “Yes.” The answer is easily given before he leans in a touch so her hands can press against the hot heat of his skin, offering the exploration even if his eyes don’t leave her own. “People ask questions, you see. Or they come up with fantastical stories of how I received them.” His horned head tilts a little. “I prefer to be thought of from my actions rather than the stories carved into my flesh.”
The Butcher of Whitebrim sounded far better than the cannibal tortured and eaten alive by gore crows because he couldn’t keep his mouth to himself.
But the moment shifts and Astaroth finds himself far more of a comforting figure than anything else in this moment, allowing her the time without judgment to regain her voice, to speak when she is ready and to offer his own because she’d started the conversation. So as she readjusts and speaks in as quiet of a voice as he’s ever heard from her, the butcher’s hands return to his shirt more fully while her own stay just shy of running along the marred scar tissue.
Meeting her green tinged aqua eyes in the firelight, his fingers continue to unbutton until he can sweep away the red fabric, revealing the entirety of the marred scar tissue that criss crosses along his torso and up along toward his shoulders, scarred and healed so poorly that the edges are raised and hardened over muscle. “Yes.” The answer is easily given before he leans in a touch so her hands can press against the hot heat of his skin, offering the exploration even if his eyes don’t leave her own. “People ask questions, you see. Or they come up with fantastical stories of how I received them.” His horned head tilts a little. “I prefer to be thought of from my actions rather than the stories carved into my flesh.”
The Butcher of Whitebrim sounded far better than the cannibal tortured and eaten alive by gore crows because he couldn’t keep his mouth to himself.
Astaroth
// take a chance and you could seize it //
