i’ve been waiting on the fault line | OTA

[limier]

WHO: Wren Coupe, Melys, Casimir Lyov, Finch Wicker + YOU
WHAT: Catchall for the month
WHEN: Mid- whatever this month is i give up
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Will edit as appropriate

 

Editing these in as I go, if you’d like a specific starter please hmu on plurk or discord (oeste#8807). ♥

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[justnice]

He hadn't meant to be here. Might not be, if anyone had bothered to tell him who sleeps where — but they haven't, and he's here, and his gaze drops to the floor as he sucks in a breath.

And then what?

Finch twists the handles of the linen basket between his palms, and sets it down.

"I'm staying," He says, at last, and it's only saying it now that he knows how long it's really been decided for. What's there to go home to? "Can I come in? I've got,"

He nudges the basket with his foot.

"They're hangings. For the walls."

Some rich, shem, castle thing.

[wheretheferngrows]

"What?"

"They're hangings. For the walls."

"Oh. Oh, right." She steps out of the way and, suddenly aware that she's still in her nightshirt, hastily grabs up her cloak and tugs it around her shoulders for a bit more modestly. (Stupid, to be staying inside this late into the morning, stupid to let another maudlin mood over Sina's death keep her cloistered away in private for so long--stupider still, because now here she is, and there Finch is, and he's terrified of her.)

She goes to perch stiffly on the edge of her bed and watches him move into the room, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Colin's things are more or less neatly stowed on his half of the room, but even know that some part of her worries. Then, after a moment, she ventures hesitantly, "Finch, I know you're angry with me and I... I'm sorry."

[justnice]

He averts his eyes as she swipes up a covering, unhappily conscious of the way they want to track back. Pinning up the drapery (as much as he can reach) is less work than it's an excuse to keep looking away.

"I'm not mad at you." Defensive. There's no way about it without clambering onto the slight wall ledge, and he pauses to push himself up. "I'm not — trying to be."

And that rings a little closer to truth. Finally,

"Do you remember when Fisher died?"

Maybe not. They'd both been young, the Blight not far behind. A winter fever, water in the lungs, an uncle gone. Nothing so unusual.

[wheretheferngrows]

The truth stings, but it stings less than the lie had. Fern doesn't relax, but she does lose the line of tension from her shoulders. Here, at least, they're talking. At least there's that.

"Do you remember when Fisher died?"

The question pulls her hard to port, her heart lurching in her chest. It's impossible not to think of Sina then--she was thinking of her only moments ago--

"I helped ma' try to keep his fever down," she ventures quietly after a pause, her fingers fidgeting in the wool of her cloak. After a moment, she stands and moves to his side, to help him with the hangings. It seems silly to simply sit there in her own room while he does the work. She's just as capable of it. "We thought he'd rallied, near the end, but.." Off taper her words, and she glances at Finch questioningly out of the corner of one eye.

[justnice]

"Yeah," And there’s an old, ugly plummeting in his belly as she speaks. Memory unfolds from the muddle of years. "Yeah, she did well for him. You both did. But he died,"

He takes a breath.

"And then the sisters wouldn’t come give him rites, in case it was catching. Only we found out, after, that they’d done it for O’Donnell."

Another hired hand, a human one. He’s wary for different reasons now; casts a sidelong glance:

"You remember how the Chantry windows got broken out that winter?"

As secrets go, it’s not much beside hers. But it's an offering.

[wheretheferngrows]

If the way her face darkens at the memory is any indication, yes--yes, she does remember, and the nights they spent trying to tend to his body without those rites.

His next words give her pause. "You remember how the Chantry windows got broken out that winter?"

"Yes," she starts slowly, then pauses again. AS she looks at him, meeting his eyes, her own grow a touch wide, her lips parting. There's even the beginnings of a scandalized smile forming at their corners.

"...Finch, you didn't," she says. But she doesn't sound like she disapproves in the slightest.

[justnice]

"Not alone." Too young, and never the sort to think of it himself. "I didn’t even know where we going, just that Thrush was —"

He breaks off, at a loss for the shape of that old shadow. You don’t rat out your brother’s tears, even to memory; it’d been storming hard that night, couldn't have seen.

"— Well." He begins again, a little lamely. "You know how he gets.

"We never told anyone, but Da knew. Robin knew. All the shouting in town — they were so scared, I don’t think I’d seen them so scared before. They were sure we'd get caught. But we didn’t, and there wasn’t any taking it back. And I guess,"

"I don't know why we did it. He loved that glass, you know? Fisher. He used to stop and look at the colours, every time we’d pass. Said it was a work of art, like that meant something. And then he was gone, and it was just these broken pieces, just letting in the rain."

A breath.

"And I know it’s not the same. I know it’s not, and there’s a lot I don’t understand about this. About, all," About magic. He tugs a little too hard on the end of the fastening, yanks it back off. "All of this. But I know it had to be hard, and,"

"And I just thought we should be even."

[wheretheferngrows]

On instinct she reaches out to catch the hanging when it falls, but he likely already has hold if it, which just leaves the pair of them holding onto this meaningless bit of fabric. There's a metaphor for lots of things in there, somewhere, but she doesn't see it, not right away. Instead, she looks at him searchingly as he speaks, not interrupting, just listening.

It's big, what he's doing. As grand a gesture as either of them could make, given their circumstances. Given what she's done, and where he's coming from.

She gives her head the tiniest of shakes and looks down at the fabric. The guilt welling up in her is almost unbearable, all of a sudden. "You don't owe me anything, Finch," she says softly, bites her lip. "I'm the one who ran off on you. On everyone."

[justnice]

He wants pretty badly, to agree. She's not saying anything he hasn't thought (hasn't voiced) half a dozen times over.

"'Course I owe you." It's a bit unfair how girls can bite their lips like that. When he chews at his own it only gets bloody — doesn't turn his face all doe-eyed and sad. Probably. Never tried it in a mirror. "It's not like it's the only thing you've ever done."

Breaking up the ground before anyone else was up, dragging back the lambs they thought were lost, staying out a little later than she ought to see a story finished. A blind eye turned, a second helping shared. There's a lot more to life than here and now.

Hard as that is to remember, when all of this threatens to swallow it up whole. Hard as it is still, to try and hold that in his hands.

"Why'd you want to go? Really."

[wheretheferngrows]

"Why'd you want to go? Really."

It's so much harder to answer this question when he's the one asking it. So much harder to be truthful, to make herself look at the truth and really see it. How much of it was about the chance to join the Grey Wardens, the chance for adventure, and how much of it was just--simply--

"I can't," she starts to say, but her voice is so weak that it almost isn't even a whisper. She looks away from him and down at the rough fabric she's still holding on to, gripping it almost too tightly. "I don't--want to be married. Not to anyone." All he will hear, likely, is not to you.