faderift | [Open] you've held your head up

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[Open] you've held your head up

WHO: Beleth and YOU
WHAT: A million terrible things have been happening to Beleth in quick succession, and it's finally caught up to her.
WHEN: The last two weeks of Haring, after Sina's funeral
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: cw for depression/grieving/vicious dragon attacks

She kept it together, up until the funeral. Kept busy between helping with the plans, and her actual job. She didn't talk much aside from getting everything together, but she had been present. She had always been good at repressing her emotions to do what must be done, and she had put it to use taking as much responsibility as she could from the others that weren't handling it has well.

1.) The days after

But the funeral and wake both pass, and Beleth calls in sick, then turns off her crystal. She's done her duty to her family, and without any other crisis looming, all the stress and grief that's been building up for well over a month comes crashing down. It's not even just Sina, nor is it seeing her brother nearly catatonic, nor the nightmares she was subjected to while fighting the terror demon. It's all of that and more, and Beleth is so, so tired.

She spends most of her time in bed, in a hazy mix of wakefulness and sleep. Sometimes, when she's feeling good enough to get out of bed, but not quite enough to leave the room, she reads in a chair next to an open window. The sunlight helps, as does the sharp, clear winter wind that drifts into the room.

Despite her self-isolation, she'll (somewhat reluctantly) answer the door for visitors--though those she has little care for may find her attempting to move them along with all due speed. Little effort is spent keeping up appearances for these visitors, with no makeup, nor any hair care--leaving her hair in its natural state of a mess of frizzy hair. More telling is the exhausted look on her face, and the way her eyes seem to be focused on something in the distance, even when speaking to someone.

2.) Back in the saddle

However much she wants to spend the next year in bed, life doesn't halt for her misery. Which means that work doesn't stop either, and she knows that there's only so long a division head can slack off. So after a few days of hiding away in her room, Beleth emerges and resumes her responsibilities.

Kind of.

She can be found in her office, usually bent over some paperwork, a glass of wine by her side, in constant flux of fullness as Beleth drinks and refills it. Her productivity is proportional to how full the glass is, and more often than not, she can be found with the pen hovering in the air, her eyes staring off into the distance. Once again, little effort is expended in her appearance, and it's one of the few times she's been in (semi) public without her hair being carefully styled. She doesn't seem to particularly care.

Nor does she seem to worry much about the sudden cold that's gripped Kirkwall. Snow is brushed off of her windowsill, and Kolgrim is kept about her constantly. A fire-breathing mini dragon is a wonderful heater, and other than runs outside for food, she seems content to wait out the cold inside the tower.

There will be no awards won for productivity, but at least she's out here, trying.

2.5) Mistletoe!!

In the breaks between making effort to actually do her job, Beleth stares at the strange creature that's somehow attached itself to her hand. Or is it a plant? It must be camouflage, like a stick insect. But stick insects don't bite your hand and refuse to let go.

She seems, surprisingly, relatively calm about this new predicament. It's so minor compared to everything else, and she hasn't the energy to expend fretting over it. Instead, every once in a while, she examines the mistletoe, and gives it a good shake. When it refuses to budge, she shrugs, and goes back to writing with her other hand.

3.) Winter wonderland

When she does venture out (usually for food), she's prepared. She's lived in the Free Marches her entire life, lived in the middle of the woods during those winters, so she knows how to dress to stay warm. Layered up with a scarf, hat, coat and gloves, the only part of Beleth that's visible is her freckles and purple eyes peeking over her scarf. The upside is that it's harder to see what a disorganized mess she is.

Just in case the layers aren't enough, she's got Kolgrim in her arms--one of the few times she's willing to openly carry the dragon around. Not that she's done very much to hide him, but usually she demurs from having him in public. But this is an exception, and she holds the dragon close as she hustles to and from whatever chore has pulled her from her warm tower room.

She's not eager to talk to people, but she isn't oblivious to others having to deal with the cold, and if anyone seems to be particularly suffering, she'll offer a fire-breathing dragon to their aid--and she'll probably stop him from nipping, even.

3.5) MORE mistletoe!!

This time, the attacking mistletoe has latched onto the only skin showing: Her nose. This is significantly more distressing than the one in her office had been, not least of all because Kolgrim has a serious issue with the strange plant. Either out of instinct or some desire to protect Beleth, he's trying his very best to attack the mistletoe--unfortunately, with it still attached to Beleth.

It's enough that Beleth has to stop her rushing around to try to fend off both the mistletoe and the mini dragon trying to attack it.

"Da'len, stop--I said stop!" She flaps her hand ineffectually at the dragon, who at least hasn't tried resorting to fire yet. "Kolgrim, that is my nose--You are Fen'Harel's own, you know that?"

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Sorrel knows very few things in this world for certainty. But he knows this-- if he should have a nightmare, and go to Beleth for comfort, she will never turn him away. It's been like that between them for as long as they've been alive, and he hasn't needed it so badly in living memory. It is, after all, much like a nightmare.

That and, she doesn't look much better than he feels, when he comes to her.

"Can I...?" He asks, almost on a whisper. He's tired, and sleep is a fight he can't win alone, "Can I stay with you?"

"Of course," And she doesn't even hesitate, not for a moment. Because of course he can come to her, no matter what, no matter how he's feeling. And it's not like he will be a drain to her--she needs him as much he needs her. It's how they've always survived.

"I'm sorry I'm not handling this better." She murmurs to him as she lets him into her room, which has been allowed to become rather more messy in her time keeping herself hidden away in here. Of course, it could probably pass as a normal person's messy room, at this point--a pile of dirty clothes in one corner, various wrappings and packages from food strewn around.

"I know I should be. I'm supposed to be good at this." She continues as she sinks onto her bed. "But--I'm just so tired."

"No."

Sorrel says it, and it falls between them flat and hard, like stale bread. Too tough to swallow, too wasteful to discard; Sorrel ignores the mess in favor of following Beleth down to the bed-- and then further, down and down, flopping onto his back, as if exhausted.

"Not supposed to be anything. 'Cept ma--" He stops himself, cutting the word off short, the old sweet nickname, ma sa'asha. My only girl.

The only one, again.

Sorrel puts an arm over his eyes and reaches blindly for Beleth's back with the other. He clenches a fist in her shirt, neither pulling in nor pushing away: he just holds on.

"If you're tired, rest."

That nickname, once something sacred between them, hangs in the air, heavy. Beleth could never hate Sina, not now, but she feels a twinge of irritation that her twin's beloved nickname for her had been spoiled by this. Maybe some day, he'll be able to say it again without grief.

She doesn't move quite yet, just reaches to fuss with his hair some more, something familiar and comforting.

"Pel thinks I'm going to kill myself," She informs Sorrel calmly--only because she knows that Sorrel wouldn't think the same. She couldn't be that selfish, not after one funeral. "She keeps checking up on me. Dunno what she thinks she'll be able to do, but. She's trying."

"Tcgh," Sorrel scoffs from under his sleeve, a derisive throat-clearing sound. He doesn't think much of the fear of Beleth taking her own life, or so it seems, "Take me with you, if you do."

Is he joking? He sounds almost normal, as if he were joking. It's probably just a joke.

"Maybe she's guilty. Who knows?" He doesn't know. He hasn't been paying much attention, not for more than a glance at a time. Sorrel doesn't care about appearances, right now, "It's not like anyone could stop you if you were planning on it. You're not, right?"

A peek, to check. No, of course not. Good.

"Everyone keeps feeling at me, too. It's so much. I don't want to do... You know. Things."

“I could take you and have the Gallows with me if I had a mind for it.” Beleth replies with an incredible amount of calm for the subject matter. “And no, if I timed it right, there wouldn’t be much she could do. Poison has never been her forte. But it makes her feel better, I suppose, checking to make sure.” And while she might find it a source of mild annoyance, she doesn’t begrudge Pel for it. It’s not like Beleth has ever been incredibly enthused about this whole living deal.

“Ah, yes, things.” A deep, knowing nod. Then she flops onto her stomach next to him, sighing. “I don’t even think I can feelings right now. I think I’m all out. Like a lamp out of oil. Sometimes I get a little sputtering spark where I remember everything is terrible, then I just go back to staring at the wall for an hour.” She turns to inspect one of said walls. “I really do have excellent taste in decor.”

"I thought they came li--"

Now, of all times, is the time that Sorrel happens to lay his eyes on Beleth's decor. It is not the color of the wall that brings him up short, nor the texture, both of which are well-made to be sure, but wholly unremarkable in appearance. It's the art, mounted for display, sometimes even framed, but all of it as familiar to Sorrel as only one's children can be.

"Art," so to speak.

"...Beleth Ashara."

Beleth looks over at Sorrel, follows his gaze to the framed pictures on her wall, and then back to Sorrel. Expression completely unconcerned, she stretches on her bed, grabbing a pillow to rest her head.

“I have more hanging up in the office. I gave a few to Thranduil, as well. I’ve been saving all the ones you sent me, surely you didn’t think I would throw them out?” Like she would throw out anything that reminded her of her precious home, and the twin waiting for her. The artistically talented twin that she is very proud of, and will hang his art all over her walls.

"You're deliberately tormenting me," Sorrel accuses, because this, this petty, meaningless, purposeless fight is also the one thing that nothing else in the world seems to be, right now: simple, "You-- You gave some to Thranduil. Why?"

His tone implies that death would have been the preferable option, or perhaps lifelong exile. He knows he's being melodramatic, but listen. It's all he's got right now, play along.

"I send you gifts, try to make you smile, and this is how you repay me?"

"Yes, of course it is." Beleth replies calmly. She's willing to play along for now, because she understands the appeal, that this silly squabbling is easier to focus on than anything that lies outside of the room. "It made me smile, so I hung it up so I can always see it, and think of you. And then I gave some to Thranduil, because I thought that it might make him smile, too."

She rolls over to look at Sorrel from over the pillow. "So that's why. Because I wanted to spread something you did that made me happy, you loser."

"I hope you fall off the docks. I hope a fish eats you and you d--"

Die.

He does not hope that. He hopes against it so suddenly and with such force that the affect of offendedness drops away from him like a cloak. His fist, still balled in the fabric of her shirt, spasms briefly tighter and Sorrel is unable not to imagine it. The pit, the tree, the song, and then--

He sits up and reaches out, both in one movement, wrapping both arms around her middle, pressing his face into her should, like a child.

"Ma'saasha," He whispers, voice catching on the last vowel, "You're such an ass."

This is nice. It's comforting and familiar, and Beleth can feel herself relaxing. Sorrel making an ass of himself, then accusing her of being an ass, all while clinging to her. Home isn't always a place, she had told Solas. If she had to call anything home, surely it would be this.

It's only because she's so comfortable, because she feels safe, that she thinks--maybe. Maybe she could tell him one of the things that has been weighing her down, that no one yet knows about. Save, of course, for Ser Coupe.

"Did you know," She whispers into his hair, stroking it softly. "That a group of Inquisition agents got sent into the future through the Fade, at one point? It sounds crazy, but...The advisors believed them, which makes me think they must have had decent evidence for it." She pauses for a moment. "And few of them are people that I know to be prone to bullshit."

"A few years ago, if someone had told me any of this, I'd have said it was impossible."

The hole in the sky was the least of it-- the clan divided, merged, himself married and widowed and mourning. Beleth the leader of a great pack of shemlen killers and scouts, and half a generation of the clan moving through the human world with the ease and casual attitude of natural-born flat-ears. Time travel? Why not?

"What do you think?"

"One of the women who had been a part of the team came to me recently." Beleth whispers to Sorrel, and adjusts herself so she's turned to Sorrel, face pressing into his shoulder. Her words are low and muffled, only loud enough for someone as close as Sorrel is to hear.

"She said that I had joined the Venatori. That I was trusted by them. Rather than be a prisoner, I was...helping them." Once the words are drawn slowly out of her, it feels like she's pulled a plug, and thoughts kept to herself spills out.

"I didn't want to believe it, I thought no, I'd never--But I keep thinking about it. I keep thinking, would I? Dalish are supposed to choose the noble death, suffer in pride, but would I be able to do it? If I had the choice right in front of me, would I make the right one?"

"I don't know. I think... it depends," He says it reluctantly, as if the truth is something that must be flushed into the open, a panicked rabbit of a thing. Sorrel clearly would rather just say that of course she wouldn't, but of all people, Beleth most deserves his honesty. He's quiet a moment, and then continues, "Being Dalish is about being with other Dalish, we're not meant to be on our own."

The unspoken question there is... that if the clan were dead, if Sorrel were dead, then where would that leave Beleth? Sorrel knows, he wouldn't be able to tolerate the Inquisition, if he thought they had a hand in any hypothetical death of Beleth's, or a reasonable blame for not preventing it.

"Whatever they say we are, if we'd rather die than submit, we'd rather run than die. Maybe that other you had a plan. They can't know who you really were there, or what made you that way; they don't even know who you are here, not really."

Beleth hadn't asked Wren, because she doubted Wren knew, or cared, and even if she had, Beleth didn't want to hear it. She's already done the math that Sorrel has--she knows, no matter the circumstances, that she wouldn't have left him. That is one thing that she can be sure of.

She gives a dry, quiet laugh when Sorrel speaks, rolling onto her back to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling. "You're right. I think only a few really know me. Certainly not Ser Coupe. She said that I ended up coming back to the Inquisition in the end. Maybe that was my plan all along."

She puts a hand on her forehead with a quiet groan. "At least she said that she wouldn't tell anyone. This feels impossible, trying to guess the motivations and feel responsible for the actions of someone that isn't me. Not yet. Hopefully never."

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[Open] you've held your head up

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