i tried to write your name in the rain

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle and YOU.
WHAT: A catch-all for the month.
WHEN: August.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: Closed starters in the comments - hit me up at matriarchal or demis#8828 on discord if you would like to do something with Gwenaëlle!

Comments

[elegiaque]

Is it so selfless, she wonders. She'd thought of Asher from time to time, but never expected to see him again; discovered him here and wound herself back into his life and his company, sinks her nails into his final moments and clutches. What he'd done had meant so much to her, as stupid as it seems when she thinks back on it - is she so selfless, or does she just want to make sure that before he goes, she's just as important?

The thought might trouble her if she let it, so she doesn't, sitting when Morrigan bids her to and tucking her skirts neatly around her knees. She doesn't want to dwell on that, or on mothers, or her own loneliness and grief; the strange sense of being robbed that comes with this death, a man she'd not thought to see again taken away from her so swiftly it might be a taunt.

"Please," she says, pressing her hands together. "I'd like to hear it."

[arcaneadvisor]

For the best if Morrigan does not know because there is so little on such matters that Morrigan can answer easily when all she has ever had before is Flemeth, a woman who wished for Morrigan to be what she wished for her. Now there is Kieran, and Morrigan might love him but is there any amount of love in this world that can make up for what was a plan to save her own skin, to use him in a way not so different to Flemeth when you cut and cut again at the gorey details? A question she asks herself every time he runs to her with a smile, throwing himself into her arms when he sees her again either at the end of a day or after much longer apart.

"I pay little attention to whatever tales they tell of the Fifth Blight," she begins, which is half a lie, half not. She pays attention to what concerns her, or what nonsense they spout at terribly dull parties as if those reciting them were there. "So I cannot say how well this is known. At the time, Jonas was thought to be the last of the Couslands. The Grey Warden that rescued him, Duncan, had been recruiting as I heard later, when Arl Howe attacked their castle with his forces to slaughter all his family but his brother who was already away to fight in the battle at Ostagar. We all know how Ostagar turned out."

Morrigan had the unique opportunity to see it quite immediately after.

"There were only two Wardens left. Duncan perished, Alistair and Jonas were all that remained. Yet until Jonas and I spoke much later I had no idea he grieved more than just his mentor. I wondered at it much later, how Alistair had been so...lost within himself from the Wilds to Lothering where Jonas was able to plan, to lead, to do what must be done. There are times when the only way out is through, tis unpleasant, yet the alternative? That is surely worse."