Work Text:
Braiding her hair becomes a habit.
Astarion judges his own handiwork harshly, never satisfied and it can take well over twice as much time as it would have done had she just done it herself as he takes it apart over and over, combing his fingers through the strands to begin again. He openly laments when she gets blood stuck in it after a battle because he cannot sit and watch her struggle to do it on her own now he has permission and a strange…want to do it. It's odd to want to do something for someone else just because he enjoys it for himself. Others have never brought him so much as an ounce of joy before. Doing things to them has, in his long experience, inspired the opposite in fact. Yet he desires nothing in return and he stumbles over the odd possessive streak he's developing over his chosen duty. He is the one to keep her hair out of her eyes, to keep her locks looking presentable out and about. It's all the stranger that she lets him, encourages him.
Realistically, she encourages him to a point. When he'd stopped her mid-battle to inspect her singed fringe in Sorcerous Sundries he had been sure he'd be getting a long, loud lecture before they got home.
And he did. Just when they got back to the Elfsong instead of on the way. Always full of surprises, she is.
Tonight he lounges near the fire, doing his best to ignore the prattling child next to him telling him about her next recipe she wants to try. The same three sentences have been read repeatedly now and he still cannot remember them enough to move past them. How in the hells they'd acquired a child in their camp he does not know. He hadn't been with Elizia when the two had met, having been left to help set up camp in the abandoned barn and stables that they had found overlooking Rivington. She'd come back, child and cat in tow, and she had made it very clear that they were all to behave around the kid who would be staying with them for a while. There had been something about a lost parent and Astarion hadn't put up more than a cursory argument against it, snarking about starting a traveling orphanage. Elizia's roll of the eyes had been long-suffering for all that it was fond. It had made him smile more than anything all day. Fond of him of all people. A charmed life he'd been abducted into.
The bathroom door clicks softly shut behind Elizia as she emerges from her late night bath. He lets the book close as he tips his head back, straining his neck a little to catch sight of her. She always comes out of a wash flushed from the heat, freckled skin awash with pink. The draping of her white dress exposes swathes of skin that he can practically feel under his hands just from looking; he's never known a body besides his own so well as hers. The gold coiling belt is fastened around her waist to cinch the fabric but she's left the armbands off. It won't be long before she changes into the spare shirt of his she stole quite literally off of his body after the House of Hope to go to sleep.
The kid is still waffling on so he sends Elizia a pleading look when her search finds him in the room, always the first she seeks out. It's like she orients her world around him. Everything comes secondary or further to him. The centre of gravity for her. It's a lot of responsibility, he thinks, but he's working to be there for her to find like this. She hasn't asked him to, he doesn't really think she knows she does it, but he has scarce little to give her whilst it feels like she's giving him everything she can get those kleptomaniac hands on. She's given him his own self back. His body. His freedom. Well. He did a lot of the work himself, he's not selfless enough to give her all the credit. Not really selfless at all. And she seeks him out anyway.
Her top braided buns are done already and her comb is being ran through the lower half of her hair as she pads barefoot over to the railing above Astarion. "Isn't it past your bedtime, Yenna?"
The kid pouts but bids them goodnight without argument, her little bodyguard of a cat winding its way through her legs as she goes. He's almost impressed that she doesn't trip or kick it, clearly practiced.
Elizia folds in half over the railing to press an upside down kiss hello to his lips, leaving him smiling. She tucks her combed hair over her shoulder and vaults over to join him on the sofa. He holds a hand out and the comb is dropped into his grasp before she slips with grace to the floor, crossing her legs neatly. He shuffles to the side so she's sitting inbetween his legs.
"Night braids?" He asks, already splitting her hair into even halves.
"Day braids. Do you still have the clasps?"
He does, they're in his trouser pocket where she'd deposited them before going to bathe.
"Of course I do, darling."
He gets to work quietly, untangling the knots she missed and layering strand over strand over strand until he has two identical braids. The clasps are her only childhood possession and he is washed over by the trust she shows in letting him handle and look after them every time they do this.
"Hungry?" She asks when he's done, spinning herself around to look up at him.
He traces a finger over her brow, down to brush the soft skin under her eye, the ragged scar that crosses her left cheek and onto her nose. She doesn't smile but there's an ease and peace in her posture, in her eyes.
"A little, not enough," he answers, following the curve of her jaw before pulling away.
"Wake me up if you want to before we start the day tomorrow," she offers.
"As you wish."
"Can I kiss you?" She asks, blunt and without pressure for him to answer any particular way.
"I'd like nothing more, my love."
She unwinds from the floor, climbing into his lap with ease and familiarity, knees bracketing his hips. He smooths his hands over her sides, fingers catching on the belt. He'd be willing to swear that this is at least in part what draws her to wearing the dress so often; the ease of movement it allows her as it falls open up to the belt making for an easier time clambering over him or, as before, over furniture.
It's he who has to tip his head up like this to draw her in. His strong protector, looming over him. He likes it more than he should.