on the grand scale of things, concerns about or adjacent to his well-being rate on the lowest possible rung. they are often not even on the ladder. he cares about the potential of hurting astarion's feelings quite a lot, and what might happen to himself comparatively very little. he has a knee-jerk aversion to the notion of being bitten, of course, as much as any other person. but he did in fact ask for proof, and he can't very well complain about the way astarion chooses to furnish that proof. not if he agreed to it, anyway. and there is a non-zero chance that astarion really is having him on. and if he isn't, well...
he knows enough of astarion, even if it isn't much, to believe that the vampire(?) isn't going to deliberately be hurting him here. maybe not even inadvertently — though it's hard to imagine a bite not being, at bare minimum, a trifle uncomfortable. and that's fine, is the thing. if rand wants his curiosity sated, and he does, then he can bear a little risk or a little discomfort for it. if it's worse than that, then so much the better that it was only him.
all this to say, he has plenty of time on his walk over to consider. so by the time he ducks under some low-slung branches and tosses himself into a sprawl near astarion, he's already wearing an easy smile. ]
Are you trying to talk me out of this already? I thought the demonstration was your idea.
no subject
on the grand scale of things, concerns about or adjacent to his well-being rate on the lowest possible rung. they are often not even on the ladder. he cares about the potential of hurting astarion's feelings quite a lot, and what might happen to himself comparatively very little. he has a knee-jerk aversion to the notion of being bitten, of course, as much as any other person. but he did in fact ask for proof, and he can't very well complain about the way astarion chooses to furnish that proof. not if he agreed to it, anyway. and there is a non-zero chance that astarion really is having him on. and if he isn't, well...
he knows enough of astarion, even if it isn't much, to believe that the vampire(?) isn't going to deliberately be hurting him here. maybe not even inadvertently — though it's hard to imagine a bite not being, at bare minimum, a trifle uncomfortable. and that's fine, is the thing. if rand wants his curiosity sated, and he does, then he can bear a little risk or a little discomfort for it. if it's worse than that, then so much the better that it was only him.
all this to say, he has plenty of time on his walk over to consider. so by the time he ducks under some low-slung branches and tosses himself into a sprawl near astarion, he's already wearing an easy smile. ]
Are you trying to talk me out of this already? I thought the demonstration was your idea.
[ says the person who started it, but okay. ]