#(so she's regularly re-healing old scars that suddenly opened up or bones she'd fixed after breaks during the blight)

[softersinned-arc]

@koschyei said: ❛ You know, this is an interesting and efficient method of murder. I need to write this down. ❜

The smile on her lips doesn't meet her eyes, and she tries to ignore the churning in her gut; she knows better by now than to trust anyone, let alone another politician, but she wants to, and badly. She can feel it in him, some sort of power that is at once old and incomprehensible to her, and there is a part of her that wants to sit at his feet and learn, and another part of her, a greater, a louder part of her, that wishes there were some way to sink her fingers into his chest and rip it out of him to keep for herself.

She has been powerless before and has learned to survive, even to thrive, in spite of it, but it did nothing to dull her hunger. She imagines power sometimes like an organ and she imagines what it would feel like to tear the power from another person and swallow it hole, blood staining her teeth, magic burning her tongue. She is a creature of want above all else. She always has been.

"I'm afraid I'm little help to you when it comes to the Anchor's power." Not technically a lie, but certainly not the truth. Astoria's left hand pulses a gentle, glowing green, and she thinks, not for the first time, that her blood sounds different now that it's been infected by the Fade.

But it was not the Anchor's power, this time; it was her own, and a power she understands plenty well. One need not tamper with the blood as a whole when one can tamper with the things that make it, and there is plenty of water in blood. To manipulate. To move. To boil. Not technically blood magic, but she knows enough by now of the chantry to trust that not technically blood magic is hardly a solid defense. She takes in a deep breath and immediately regrets it as the euphoria of battle fades and she feels the sudden and sharp pain in her chest that means her ribs have broken again.

The dead men at her feet steams like cooked meat, their skin reddened and bursting from the heat that had poured out of her and into them. Around them, the snow has melted enough to reveal the hard, barren ground beneath it. Had she known Koschei was near, she would have been more cautious, but the Venatori had caught her by surprise. Astoria tucks her hands into her sleeves and shrugs apologetically.

"If I knew better how it worked, I would use it better. Unfortunately, much of Solas' research into rifts is beyond me. I never received a formal training in magic and I'm afraid the theory seems rather muddy compared to what I learned at the augur's knee." She raises her eyebrows, retracts her left hand and holds it out to him, palm up, as if in invitation. (In challenge.) "Though if there's knowledge in Buyan that has yet to cross the Wilds, that could guide me, surely you would know it...?"