Post #2564393 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

Nostariel tugged slightly on the hem of her blouse, feeling a smidge uncomfortable. It wasn’t that she was especially concerned with how she appeared, at least not in the sense that would likely be expected of a woman in this situation. She didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her looks, but she knew they were well enough, as looks went. And what she was wearing wasn’t inappropriate for the eventual setting—which was apparently a Hightown eating establishment. But… the fact that she was going at all made her feel a bit off. Though none of her friends had ever expressed any opinions about it, and that made it easy to forget most of the time, she was still an elf, and she wasn’t entirely sure Ashton had remembered this when he’d suggested the place.

Smoothing the imaginary creases in her blue skirt, she adjusted the leather belt to lay more naturally over her white shirt, loose enough to have a bit of tilt to it, but still functional for its intended purpose. She’d elected to wear slippers on her feet, though they felt a little to flimsy compared to her usual leather boots or even the sturdy laced sandals she wore daily in the summer months. Her hair, she just let fall loose, though as they always did, the tips of her ears protruded too far to be covered by it, and she probably wouldn’t have passed for a human anyway.

Not that she wanted to. Nostariel closed her eyes, smiling to herself. She wasn’t proud of her heritage, because she didn’t really see an accident of birth as the kind of thing she should be either proud or ashamed of. It just was, like her magic. But not everyone saw things that way, and she was going to be walking into a building full of just the kind of people who probably didn’t. She was far from afraid, but just because she didn’t have to worry about being physically harmed or anything didn’t mean that she was going to enjoy the experience.

“No thinking like that. Everything will be fine. Wonderful, even.” She was, after all, going to be going on an actual date with Ash, and she’d be lying if ever she said that didn’t made her giddy to the point of silliness. In fact, this whole internal discussion with herself was only happening because she was still waiting for him to drop by and pick her up for the walk up to Hightown. Come to think of it… it should be about that time, right?

In a matter of fact, it was. A series of knocks at the door announced the presence of just the man Nostariel was waiting for. Ashton stood on the other side of the door, dressed in his guard attire. However, for this it was immaculately polished until it had a spotless sheen. Not only was the plate flawless, but the man himself matched. His face was free of stubble due to him having shaved that day. His wild brown hair was tamed enough so that the majority laid flat against his scalp. Most of it did, a few renegade locks refused to be slicked so easily and cross his forehead. Still, he was perhaps the best dressed he had been in a long while. While Nos might not have been especially concerned with her appearance, Ashton was. He'd be damned if he didn't look his best for her.

Butterflies were still a-fluttering in his belly and they threatened to pick him off of the ground and into the sky. He wasn't nervous, there was no reason to be. The whole idea was his, to actually go out and act like an ordinary couple for once. To have a day devoted to just themselves, without having to fight or survive something. In fact, Ashton had left his bow and the guard's sword at home (a knife remained hidden in his boot; to be totally defenseless in Kirkwall was simple foolishness) for the occasion. He thought it'd be nice to have one day be absolutely normal. Though, to be fair, he felt anything but. He felt extraordinary.

As she opened the door, Nos was met with a bouquet toting Ashton smiling ear-to-ear. "Sweetheart," he said before going in for a kiss. When he withdrew, he finally offered her the bouquet with, "Flowers for my flower?"

Nostariel snorted at the terrible joke, shaking her head, but her expression was nothing but affectionate. His humor wasn’t exactly sophisticated, but it was entirely his, and she liked that levity about him. It made everything else they had to deal with feel more manageable somehow. She already wasn’t sure what she’d do without it, without him, and that was honestly a little frightening. But part of being happy was taking those risks, and she was more than willing to do so.

“Thank you, Ash. That was very sweet.” She rose up onto her toes to peck him on the jaw—about as far as she could reach unless he ducked his head for her—and grinned, stepping back and turning on her toe to find something to keep the blooms in. Fortunately, there was no shortage of glass vessels in the clinic, and the flowers were cheerily occupying her windowsill no more than two minutes later, at which point she turned back to her guardsman.

“You know, I’m beginning to suspect you just look for excuses to wear the uniform. So… where are we off to?” She laid her worries to rest for the moment, willing to suspend her skepticism for the sake of what was, in all honesty, the first proper date she’d ever been on. It was worth a little effort to be optimistic, considering the company was perfect and the rest didn’t matter near as much as that anyway.

"Hey, if it fits it fits," He answered with a sly grin, rolling his neck around in his collar. She wasn't wrong, he found himself in it more often than out of it. It was still an odd feeling, being a guardsman, though not uncomfortable. It was something about the weight of it, the way it hung around his shoulders that reminded him why he joined the guard in the first place. He offered an arm for her too take and gestured outside. "It's not the Hanged Man by any means," he said with a laugh, "Just a nice little place I tripped over on one of my lighter patrols. Not too big, not too fancy, but just right."

He chose a smaller place for a specific reason. Had he not cared at all, he would've suggested the fanciest, nicest place in Kirkwall, but those places tended to attract a certain kind of people. Despite appearances, Ashton wasn't unaware of the fact that he was a human and she an elf. It was just that he never paid it much attention. Others may, but that's why he chose this place. While some may still judge them based on their relationship, it wouldn't be as much as if they went elsewhere. While he couldn't give less of a damn about what people thought of them, he wasn't going to let a few harsh glares or ugly words disturb their time. And he figured that Nos would have an easier go of it with a little less staring.

That and he heard they had really good food.

"Come on, Nos. I can either tell you about it, or I can show you," he said with a laugh and a playful beckon.

“You know, last I checked, most people could walk and talk. At the same time, even. You sure this plate isn’t slowing down more than your feet?” She grinned and gave a playful tug to the front of his chest plate, looping her arm through his and walking them both right out the door.

The walk up to Hightown was pleasant, partially due to the early autumn weather, which was still warm with the vestiges of summer, without the awful humidity that made clothing stick to a person like a second skin. The sunlight was bright enough to almost bleach out the pale stone that most of the city seemed to be made of, the colors to be seen against it—merchant awnings, painted storefronts, even the occasional more artistic piece of vandalism—bright and contrasting.

Nostariel enjoyed that she didn’t have to talk constantly with Ash, whether because they were enjoying the quiet or because he was naturally more talkative and she enjoyed listening to him being mostly inconsequential. A little of one, a little of the other, really, and everything was perfectly pleasant until they reached the restaurant, which seemed to be rather small. She supposed that made sense; such establishments were usually only for a limited clientele; more traditional nobles preferred servants do the cooking, and most people in Lowtown couldn’t afford such luxuries on anything like a regular basis. Even if they could, they likely wouldn’t be especially comfortable among the more cosmopolitan rich of Kirkwall.

“So, do we just go in or…?” Nostariel had only ever taken meals at inns and the like, nothing of this kind.

"I would imagine so," He answered. "I mean, I'm not sure how they do it in Hightown, but I doubt we have to knock," He said with a smile. "If we end up looking silly, feel free to blame it all on me." He took the led toward the door, and like the gentleman (he thought) he was, opened it and let Nos go in first. The interior was as small as the exterior led one to believe, but it was far from cramped. It was actually kind of cozy, with the décor one would expect of a Hightown establishment. Neither were they alone, other patrons occupied tables that dotted the floor.

Ashton led them to a nearby table, again pulling out a chair for Nostariel to take a seat in before find his own, before waiting patiently for the wait staff. "Don't ever say I don't take you anywhere nice," He said with a wink.

“I would never.” Nostariel smiled over at him, the expression so obviously affectionate she might have been embarrassed if she could see it on her own face. But she was quite far gone, wasn’t she? Of course, it was perhaps at least a little because if she focused on this, it was easier to ignore her discomfort. Fortunately, even as their orders were taken and the food prepared, no one was overtly hostile at all. That said… she was keenly aware of being the only elf in the building who wasn’t presently laboring over someone else’s dinner. She’d never be able to stop being aware of it.

Her friends did not see her status and judge her for it, she knew. Some of them, she suspected, failed to really see it at all. And that was wonderful, it really was. But it didn’t change anything about the way the wider world was. However lucky she was in her personal life, however fortunate she had been to be first a mage and then a Warden, two places where the racial barrier was thinnest, she still could not escape the fact that out there, she was less. And he would be less, too, for loving her the way he did. It was one thing to say he didn’t care… but another to actually experience it.

She waited until they’d had plenty of opportunity for more pleasant conversation before broaching the subject as delicately as she could. “Um, Ash… I just.” Well, that wasn’t the most articulate sentence she’d ever managed, to be sure. Knitting her brows together, she tried again. “I know you don’t think about these things very much, and that’s good, but… this isn’t going to be as simple as we want it to be, you know? I mean… I’m an elf. Warden or no, that’s going to create some problems.”

"Nothing worth doing ever is," Ashton said gently, his hands propping up his chin. One peeled away from the other and laid on top of Nos's, squeezing it affectionately. "Nos..." He said with a sigh. he was expecting a conversation like this eventually, though didn't know when it'd happen. He knew now though, and he didn't intend to dodge it either. "You know me well enough by now," He began with a smile, "Not a lot slips by me. I just choose not to point things out," His hand then left her own and went to the side of her face, caressing one of her elongated ears with his thumb.

"I know that you're an elf. These beautiful ears of yours remind me everyday. I see the looks we get when we're together too," a tilt of his head accompanied his words, gesturing over to an older man with gray hair glaring at them. "There's muttering in the barracks that suddenly dries up when I walk into them. No one's ever said anything to me, but I think it's part of the reason Snuffy and I are usually patrolling alone." He plucked a strand of her from her face and tucked it behind her ear, his smile never wavering as he spoke.

"Odd looks and whispering never bothered me. If they did, then I wouldn't be the man you love."

“I know. And if it were just that, then I wouldn’t have said anything.” But… it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just a few intolerant people who’d look at them funny or sometimes say unkind things. “But Ash… this isn’t just those things.” She reached up to the hand hovering by her ear and caught the back of it in her palm, lowering both of them back to the table and turning them so that his palm faced up. It was easier to say this when she had something trivial to occupy herself, like using the index digit of her other hand to softly trace his calluses.

“Shop owners will refuse you service. People that were friendly to you before, maybe even your friends, will stop talking to you. You’ll probably be passed over for promotion—and I know how much it means to you that you’re doing something good. You can’t change the whole Guard by running solo patrols with Snuffy.” That much was just obvious. To change anything, a person had to have some kind of power. The avenue to that power through the ranks of the Guard may well be permanently closed to him, depending on who decided promotions. Someone had thought it was a good idea to put Aatrox in charge, after all, and look at how he’d been.

“People… some of them will say awful things. Disgusting things.” She generally didn’t make it a point to mention this, but being rather less fearsome looking than someone like Ithilian, she already dealt with a number of these issues. “And some night… someone might decide that what we’re doing here is a crime we should pay for in blood. It’s not for nothing that there are no stories about people like us… we don’t usually live through them.” Of course, there were no guarantees it would go that badly, but… realistically, it was something they would always have to watch for. People could find all kinds of reasons to hate and hurt each other—some even less logical than this one, if that were possible.

But the precedent was definitely not optimistic. Nostariel knew she perhaps had more to worry about than he did, because regardless of everything, Ash was still human, and that would protect him, to a degree. She could not be more grateful for that. But even so… they could not live oblivious to the dangers of what they did.

Falling in love had been so very easy, in the end. A life together would be much harder.

Ashton's smile wavered before slipping downward into a frown. He... hadn't thought of all that.

Perhaps he was far too optimistic for his own good. Maybe he was just naive. She spoke from what sounded like experience, something she'd been through far more than him. He'd been floating in the clouds, but hadn't taken the time to fly back down to remember what the real world was like. He sighed through his mouth as his eyebrows twitched, digesting all that she'd said. Everything, it made sense and he could see that she was right. As usual. Things would be hard for them, harder than he'd thought.

But.. What was his other option? The only other option he saw was one he refused to entertain. She meant too much to him to just give up for the sake of convenience. It'd be just like giving up and running away, and he promised himself that he was done with running. He nodded his head as he quietly watched her trace his hand with her finger. He wanted this no matter how hard it would be for him, but he wondered if she did too. He looked back to her and gently shook his head, a smile forming back into his lips.

"You... Are my rock, you know that?" Just by being there she shored up his weaknesses. She made him into a better man, and he truly believed that. He didn't know what he'd be, or what he'd do without her. It wasn't a thought he liked to think about. "So. What are our choices?" he asked.

A life together would be hard, but it wasn't a life he could imagine any other way.

Nostariel’s mindless motions stilled, and she glanced up at him. She hadn’t really been expecting that question. “Well… I suppose there are two. Either we can… just not do this, or… we can try it carefully, sleep with one eye open, and accept that what we are will never be okay to some people.” Her eyes softened, and she sighed, relinquishing his hand.

“I’m not saying I want to give up before we’ve even begun. Maker, that’s the last thing I’d ever want. But… I do want you to understand what you’ll be taking on, if you want to do this. If we’re to be… together.” In that specific sense of the world. It was funny, really. She’d never been the kind of person who wished to have been born a human rather than an elf—she’d always been more concerned with whether or not she wanted to be a mage. It had been the status with the most salience. For once, her magic wasn’t the problem. She didn’t exactly wish she were human, but she had to acknowledge that life would be much easier if she were.

“I don’t want any of those things to happen to you, Ash. And maybe if we’re lucky, they never will. But I need you to understand that they might.” Often, she had found, it was the best people, the people who would never dream of seeing her as different or less, that were least aware of the ways in which everyone else did see her—and elves generally—that way. Disabusing him of his sunny optimism was unpleasant, but necessary. “Whether you want to shoulder the possibility has to be your choice—it can’t be mine.” She’d never have it, but that didn’t mean she’d dream of taking it away from him. She’d not hold it against him if he didn’t want to risk that kind of systematic danger, and unpleasantness. It was not, after all, trivial.

"It can't just be mine either, Nos." His manner was gentle, but firm. "You run the same risks that I do, maybe even more because you're a mage too." She was worried about him, far more than she was worried about herself. It caused another flicker of a smile. She was so selfless, even after everything she'd been through. It was why he'd called her his rock, she was a stabilizing force in his life. He stopped her hand before she fully relinquished it and held it on the table, affectionately circling the back of her palm with his thumb. "This isn't just about me, I never want to be that selfish ever again. Everything you just said goes for you too. It's not about one or the other, it's about us."

He didn't want her to suffer because of him; didn't want to drag her down with him. "Can you live with that possibility? You'll be in just as much danger as me, do you think you can handle it? Not only that, but would you be okay with watching me carry it?" He sighed again, and brought her hand to his lips. "I don't... I don't want to see you suffer because of me." It pained him to think about, but he loved her too much to let her be hurt because of him. "You're so kind, but... You have to think of yourself too. You can't just push all of this in my hands, because I'm not going to facing it alone. You'll be there too, right beside me."

He was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. "This has to be our choice. We have to decide if we're both are strong enough to do this."

Nostariel sighed, the flicker of a smile crossing her face for just a moment. Honestly, the things she would deal with because of this relationship were not so different from the ones she would deal with already. But… he was right, that it would not be easy to watch him shoulder those additional burdens because of who she was. Leaning forward slightly, she forewent typical table manners for the moment—she was done eating anyway—and propped her elbow on the surface, catching her chin in her free hand. “None of that will be easy. And it will be difficult in a very different way from fighting Darkspawn or bandits or even Qunari. But I… even knowing that—” She shook her head slightly, restarting her sentence.

“Ash, I’ve never been this happy before. Not in my entire life. Sometimes, that scares me, and I start looking for all the ways it could go wrong. I convince myself that it will, because everything else always has.” It was hard to come off a track record like Nostariel’s and not be constantly bracing oneself for inevitable failure. It was something she knew she had to work at—letting herself hope that this time, things would be different. They would be better. That even though she knew beyond the shadow of her doubt that her life ended in violence, in about twenty years, give or take, if not before, it was worth it to make that time as wonderful as it could possibly be.

“I… I want that. I want to be happy, with you. I want to hope that, come what may, we’ll be able to endure, and that, on balance, our good days will outnumber our bad. That the things we’re doing, together and separately, will mean something, maybe even change some minds. But even if they don’t, even if we can’t… I think I’d be okay with that, as long as we were both where we wanted to be. So… yes.” She took a deep breath, meeting his eyes with a tentative smile on her face. “I am strong enough to do this. As long as you’re with me.”

He hadn't noticed until now, but his hands were trembling on the table top. He didn't know when it started but they shook, ever so subtly, but it was there. At her answer he closed his eyes and sighed, his head dipping downward. He lingered like that for only a moment, and when Ashton rose, he wore a smile that mirrored Nos's, meeting her eyes with his.

He'd take all the bad that came with the good, he'd never thought he'd be as happy as he was with her. He never thought he would've deserved it. But it didn't matter now, however hard it'd get, he'd take it all with a goofy smile and an easy laugh. He wanted this too much to do otherwise, whatever the danger was.

"There's no place else I'd rather be."

Snippet #2564393

located in Kirkwall, a part of The City of Chains, one of the many universes on RPG.

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