Work Text:
Astarion snaps his fingers and a servant appears. He quickly rattles off instructions. A cup of her favorite tea, laced with some animal blood, warmed just the way she wanted it. Her favorite tailor is summoned.
He follows her to their old room, and deep inside he is giddy, an emotion he hasn’t felt in a long time.
She sits on her old desk, running her hands over the filigree. She has missed her comforts here. Her table where she worked. Their bed - the mattress a perfect softness and the sheets always immaculate until they methodically ruin it every night. She turns to Astarion, and seeing his grin, can’t help but smile back.
For a moment, all is well.
Whither is thy beloved gone?
Chapter 6
Astarion stands behind the artist they’ve commissioned, fingers idly scratching his chin as he watches the painting taking shape on the canvas. A good likeness, he thinks - it doesn’t exactly capture Ban, and he doubts any painting ever really can - but it is a decent attempt.
She smiles, and his own lips quirk up in response. She’s always looked better smiling, as rare a thing as it is nowadays, although they’ve been making some headway on that front.
I mean, she does smile, Astarion muses. Just not at -
The thought dies when he meets her eyes and sees hers locked onto his; hers are crinkled with amusement, and he feels his chest swell.
“Missed a button,” Ban says, nodding at him.
It takes a moment to register her words. His mind is back to when she had first smiled at him again - a genuine, honest-to-goodness smile, and not one of those manufactured ones she’s aimed at him since his ascension.
How she had sat at her desk, running her hands all over it. How she had looked around their room as if seeing it for the first time, and how she had turned to him and returned his grin with one of her own.
He’ll always remember that, he thinks. He’ll always have that to remind him that there is hope.
“Astarion.”
Her voice snaps him out of it, and he shifts awkwardly, hands moving to clasp behind his back as he straightens up.
“Yes, my love?”
“Your button. I’m not going to dinner in the upper city with your shirt askew like that,” she mutters.
“Or, you know, I could just unbutton everything and not go out at all,” Astarion counters. The laugh that rings out from her lips makes his heart flutter.
Ban shakes her head at him. “Maybe. Depends how nice you’ll be the rest of the day.”
“Darling,” he drawls. “I’ll be positively angelic.”
The painter clears his throat, annoyed that his subject is moving around too much. Astarion immediately shifts his attention towards him, eyes instantly glaring. Try doing that again.
Just as quickly he turns back to Ban, the hardness melting away as if it was never there at all. She’s back to holding the pose for the painter, and Astarion satisfies himself with observing the work.
There is still a long way to go, a distance he isn’t even sure he can traverse, but at least there is that.
A little hope.
Snowfolly's Ban
Izumii's Ban
