[ There are stages to acclimating a creature that has been in the wilderness too long to anything gentler than what it's been used to. For all that Astarion may not trust this house, he has come to trust some of the people within it, come to allow some small measures of touch, though none that have stepped into the more intimate territory the place seems to encourage.
He trusts Gale, has for a little while now, but his touch isβ unfamiliar. Especially like this, the relative smallness of it β as though it's only natural, as though it's nothing β somehow magnifying it instead. They hadn't attended to each other like this at camp, not least because they hadn't had to. He doesn't flinch, doesn't pause, but his head shifts slightly, one red eye briefly visible, the brow above it arched but not pinched, assessing but notβ fearful, angry, unwilling. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, his gaze is gone, as he uses one hand to steady Gale's torso and the other, his fingers briefly twisting, to tear the bandage off from the rest of the roll.
(The phantom of warmth remains, there by the slant of his ear. An urge bubbles up within him to ask if he should take this to mean that he's been attending to Orin in Gale's form, but it subsides soon enough. He knows better than to take such a thing for granted.) ]
A greeting, then? [ he wonders, blissfully oblivious to the idea of secret handshakes. ] Or something that could naturally follow asking after one's health. I doubt any greeting is so perfectly common that its use would go unnoticed, yet not so ubiquitous that one might not stumble upon it inadvertently.
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He trusts Gale, has for a little while now, but his touch isβ unfamiliar. Especially like this, the relative smallness of it β as though it's only natural, as though it's nothing β somehow magnifying it instead. They hadn't attended to each other like this at camp, not least because they hadn't had to. He doesn't flinch, doesn't pause, but his head shifts slightly, one red eye briefly visible, the brow above it arched but not pinched, assessing but notβ fearful, angry, unwilling. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, his gaze is gone, as he uses one hand to steady Gale's torso and the other, his fingers briefly twisting, to tear the bandage off from the rest of the roll.
(The phantom of warmth remains, there by the slant of his ear. An urge bubbles up within him to ask if he should take this to mean that he's been attending to Orin in Gale's form, but it subsides soon enough. He knows better than to take such a thing for granted.) ]
A greeting, then? [ he wonders, blissfully oblivious to the idea of secret handshakes. ] Or something that could naturally follow asking after one's health. I doubt any greeting is so perfectly common that its use would go unnoticed, yet not so ubiquitous that one might not stumble upon it inadvertently.