[ OPEN ] Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time

[ombranera]

WHO: Zevran and YOU
WHAT: Zevran's Birthday and Ardent Blossom Contest
WHEN: Forward dated to Guardian 5
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Shenanigans connected to this announcement

Someone had been a sneaky little shit, preying on Zevran's lack of familiarity with traditions and dates and the weight people tend to put on something so mundane as a 'birthday'. Someone (Alistair) had spread word and made a thing of it, despite Zevran not seeing the point nor truly wishing to cause a fuss. He had, however, decided to take a day for himself to do nothing. No fuss, no stress, no real work. A day to indulge in a few of his many hobbies. He did not know what one did on their birthday normally but here he was, sitting in the Courtyard with one of his found spoils on his head, awaiting those that paid mind to his earlier announcement. When he wasn't idly sketching whoever he saw in the courtyard he was in the Herald's rest, enjoying a quiet drink and making notes on the better stories or songs he has heard throughout the day.

Comments

[arcaneadvisor]

A birthday is not something she can claim she celebrated much herself. Flemeth marked the day in her own way, not the way others did with celebrations because there was no point. You have survived another year, Flemeth so often seemed to say and did when she grew older, ungrateful as ever. Wipe that look off your face.. Her gifts had never been gifts, they’d always been something needed, not that a gift wasn’t always needed but they had never been like the gifts the Warden had given her, gifts just because, things he saw and thought she might like, things that simply made him think of her. Morrigan’s birthdays had been a marker, that was all, and so she could sympathise.

Only there was Kieran and though making a fuss was not her way, there was always something she hoped he would like, a day where they did whatever he wanted to do, where he had no lessons, and no one had designs on Morrigan’s time. A day just for them and always a late night. There’s one soul that knows her birthday too because children notice these things, and it’s another day that’s just the two of them, some small childish thing kept safe, hoarded like treasure.

She’s smiling when she finds Zevran, carrying something small and wrapped in a scrap of dark cloth, a delicate wave pattern through the fabric, tied off with a ribbon darker still. Too neat for a child but this is what mothers are for, is it not?

"I shan’t ask how old you are when I think I know the answer." Old enough and too old, isn’t that how it goes? "Kieran is off with his friends, but he asked that I bring this to you. He’s very proud of it and you've been good to him."

It’s very Chasind, not Zevran’s style but there are things you pass down and her son has an eye for it. Not unlike Morrigan’s robes and the stones and feathers holding the front together; a crow, long glossy feathers for the wing and tail, shining green and blue in the light, and dark stones gathered from places she can’t recall, bound tight together, a long jagged one for the beak, a good sturdy pin lashed to the back. A strange brooch, even strange for a Chasind she would think but Kieran likes things with wings, it’s why he loves the griffin sewn to the front of so many of his clothes.

[ombranera]

"He is a wonderful boy." Is the easy answer, the kind answer. Once foreverago he had considered making an offer to Morrigan should he find her with a child she may or may not truly desire. Should the child be less or more than they'd thought- one cut quickly done. Now...Now he cannot imagine doing such a thing. The boy has dreams. The boy is strange. But Kieran smiles as a boy smiles, learns as a boy learns and calls him 'uncle' with all the fondness and adoration only a familiar and friendly child can offer. He is no dangerous crow or hero, simply himself.

Zevran supposes that makes it the true answer as well. That Kieran is wonderful and he is fond.

Sentiment.

He shoves the voice back to the darkest corners of his mind, accepting the gift with a smile. Untying it to see the shape of a bird (so many feathers in his gifts) and upon closer inspection? A crow. A crow unlike any he's ever seen and for that alone he pins it without hesitation to the side of his vest, above his heart. "It is lovely work- he is right to be proud."

[arcaneadvisor]

Kieran was always part of a plan, and she might not ever know if her loving him as she does excuses how she went about getting him though there are plenty of children born for selfish reasons who don’t have even a fraction of the love she has for him. It’s not as if travel is easier with a child, or maintaining the charade in Orlais that she hasn’t bothered with here; Skyhold is small, Orlais was not, and she flitted where she would there. This is more settled than they’ve had since the Crossroads and many would argue that wasn’t settled at all. Kieran has a destiny she makes him ready for, so few can say the same.

Here in Skyhold, Kieran has something that’s more normal than growing up in an Orlesian court, a chance for proper friends, to make a little family for however long it lasts, fewer lies to carry around.

What he’ll call Alistair is a bridge she’ll cross when it comes to that.

“When he has the chance he will certainly come looking for you.” Meaning, she will try to usher him Zevran’s direction before too much drinking starts, she doesn’t trust everyone, and what might be a funny joke in your cups isn’t always so to the ears hearing it. “I never saw the point of this myself, it surprises me that Alistair would. Dogs struggle with the concept of time.”

[ombranera]

"They have but the two, 'right now' and 'this is taking forever.'" His voice slips into a fair likeness of Alistair's in all it's whining, petulant glory. "Honestly? Keeping track with First Day is enough for me. He insisted; something about being glad."

Today, though- a decade ago they'd been in the deep roads and Alistair called him Zev. Morrigan had rolled her eyes at them but not said a word when he went to start dinner. Leliana gave him a flower from the surface so he could remember what the sun felt like.

Little things. Little, trusting, kind things he's never had until them.

"Remind me of when yours might fall, and Kieran's, so I might dote upon you both properly."

[arcaneadvisor]

Now that gets a laugh out of Morrigan, rare as a Ferelden day absent of the threat of rain. "Now that sounds more likely though I suspect he would deflect with his usual humour," and the sarcasm dripping off that leaves no doubts as to her thoughts on the matter, "should you attempt such a feat yourself."

Sometimes she does forget that it's been a decade, even when she's the one with no true excuse for it given how old Kieran is. Strange how they've all come back, different but part of them unchanged; still here to help, though fortunately older and wiser.

She herself is less a collection of the raw edges Flemeth left, not that all of them will see it.

"I will remind you of Kieran's." It's a tone that to most would brook no argument but Zevran is not most people. Still, she sees no reason to have such foolishness thrust upon her all for a simple day, and even with Kieran's she'd prefer to keep it small and quiet. Her son is different, she won't have him around too many people who might say something cruel. "He requires little, both of us must be prepared to move on our feet."

[ombranera]

"Things to be worn, then, sweets to be eaten. Perhaps some lovely jewelry for his mother as well." Something with age and weight to it, something that had meaning. Perhaps even something of his own Antiva might suit her best. "In Antiva there is a tradition of mothers and their children wearing matching bracelets. Or, so I was told."

His own perished before he ever knew her, and such things were never truly given among children of a whore house.

"I could cook dinner for you both." Something new, something light and flavorful. With the gifts Vivienne had given him it would not be so difficult a task.

[arcaneadvisor]

“If you feed him sweets and keep him up half the night he shall be dumped in yours and Alistair’s laps. And honestly, can you imagine Flemeth and I matching?” Well, maybe blood if she had been the one to go along and kill her but she hadn’t been willing to risk it. “In Orlais none knew that Kieran was my son, in Skyhold that is impossible, when there are so many who know of all of us but twas easier for him. To not have to be tied to the whispers that followed me if they reached his ears.”

Their lives are a balancing act. She would rather sew griffons to the front of his clothes to give him that belonging, rather than bedeck him in something more Chasind, more like her, unless they have to blend in while on the move. Few stop a wild looking mother and son on the road.

“Dinner I would agree to.” The quiet would be appreciated, as would the companionship, another audience for Kieran’s stories who would only match them with his own more outlandish tales but it does make her think of another dinner, if it could be agreed to. “Those of us who survived the Fifth Blight, I wondered if we all might sit together - and a meal would be easiest, all of us need to eat - and find a private place where we might speak. Each of us has heard different things and I have spoken to Alistair already.”

Some things though? Some things are only for their ears, the ones she can trust more than any others and they all share that strange bond of spending a year fighting Darkspawn and seeing an Archdemon take flight.

[ombranera]

"Well. No." He snorted a soft laugh, the very idea of her and her mother, bickering as they were, in any way having anything in common? Well. Aside from their magic, their with, their clever twists of manipulation-


Actually they had a fair bit in common but Zevran was no fool. He knew when to speak and when to keep his mouth shut. Morrigan's fears were not unfounded. Children and people could, he knew well, be cruel. Better to spare them both. He dared enough to reach over and catch her hand, squeezing it for a moment in a casual gesture of affection. Something neither of them truly had and something he was, to be certain, trying on for size. It felt right.

Well, until he lost the hand, but- it felt right.

"As long as Alistair is not permitted to cook and we are able to pull Leliana from her ravens- though it does beg the question of whether or not we would include Shale and Cullen as they too are survivors but Shale does not dine and Cullen is..." He waved a hand. Cullen was Cullen. "Has he spoken to Kieran just yet?"

[arcaneadvisor]

This is the difference between the people who know how to survive and those who don't: she isn't unaware, there's so much that comes from the hand that raises you no matter the relation, and the same way that glass will show cracks and faults if the handler is unskilled, so does a person. Morrigan is what Flemeth made her into, at least at first, and Kieran?

Kieran deserves to be his own little person. She has no designs on him such as wearing his skin like her mother wished to.

As ever she flinches, she's not used to being touched unless it's her son who is freer and more open with his affections; a hand clutching hers when he's afraid or wants to show her something, a hand at her back and around her side if he's shrinking back, each time he comes for a hug just because. She understands that some touching isn't just pointless, just another thing Flemeth never allowed her.

"I do hope that he never volunteers whenever he leaves Skyhold to help with whatever requires a Warden's touch. Even starving men would sooner make a soup of rocks and grass should they clap eyes on it but I speak with Leliana, I could convince her." Or needle her, same difference, but she shares her research more openly so it might work to get her to come down. "I have spoken with the commander but once, I would prefer to keep Kieran far from him."

She remembers the Circle tower, even ten years on such a man will not even clap eyes on her son.