closedish.

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair, Kostos, Jehan, or Théo + Other People
WHAT: Catchall
WHEN: Guardian 9:44
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Closed in that there are no open prompts but feel free to spring something on me or hmu if you want a thing.

Comments

alistair, after the quarantine is announced.

[elegiaque]

Coupe's ring hangs about her throat, on the same chain as the locket containing her father and uncle's images; cheaper and more slapdash, which she uncharitably thinks is some kind of metaphor for Coupe and her uncle, probably. A kind assessment of a man she's not even met.

(In another lifetime, she hadn't known the weight of what she was telling him and for a long time after, he said nothing at all—)

It bounces against her sternum when she descends the stairs, a reminder of where she is going and why—she finds Alistair easily, picks him out in the infirmary beds (she could've done this with Coupe and probably more easily, after all, if someone has fetched her, but no matter). Goes there, sits on the edge of it without waiting to be invited to sit at all, or giving any consideration at all to the chair nearby she could have taken instead. She finds his hand, for once not particularly concerned with the sickly green glow in her own

though it makes her think of...something, there's something she should be doing, isn't there

no matter.

No matter.

“I don't want you to take this amiss,” she says, instead of hello or how are you feeling.

[byblow]

When she sits on the bed, Alistair cracks his eyes open enough to see who it is, who dares disturb—but it’s fine, it’s Gwenaëlle—and then closes them again, firmly, because the light is no good for his head. But he’s awake. If the scrunched-up signs of deliberate effort at the corners of his eyes weren’t plenty of evidence of that, he also smiles tightly.

“Do your worst, Lady Vauquelin.”

[elegiaque]

Prepared to remind him in a matter of moments that he said that, she says,

“Have you made any arrangements for Sabine in the event of your death?”

which is a fucking question, isn't it.

Hastily— “Not that you're going to die, but if it happens that you do, because Maker knows everyone's doing such a bang up job of making sure you all don't, is there anything that you especially want for her to have? Have you written her anything?”

A beat.

“And, you know. Where is it.”

[byblow]

“Wow.”

His laugh is the same breathless sound he’s made in the past while trying to pretend that none of his bones were even slightly broken. But he did invite it. After a moment he opens his eyes to deal with it.

“There’s no letter. There isn’t—leaving things unsaid isn’t really a problem that I have.”

Sabine knows what she needs to know. He still probably should have written a letter. If he’d seen this coming—if he were five or ten years older and starting to hear the song again—there would have been a letter. He’s carried enough coin purses and jewelry to widows to know better than to not think it could happen sooner.

“There’s a sword under my bed,” he says. “It’s worth a lot of money. She should have that—the money. I don’t know what she would do with the bloody sword.”

There’s something he should ask Gwenaëlle. Trying to remember what is like trying to remember where he last left a set of keys.

[elegiaque]

Ever thoughtful (here taken to mean 'thinks a lot', content of thoughts notwithstanding), Gwenaëlle has come armed with paper and ink and her reading glasses, which she puts on as she writes what he says, or at least writes down her new to do list based on what he's said—

“I can arrange the sale,” she says, absently, “I'll be able to get more money for it than she could.”

It's not boastful or prideful, it's the plain fact that Sabine is a city elf and Gwenaëlle is a noblewoman. Whether she sells it in Orlais or here in the Marches, take a trip to Markham and bat her lashes at Alexander, maybe, sentiment might see his way clear to letting her exploit his connections for a better deal, and now she knows better what to expect it would—it'd—

Something feels wrong. She's frowning when she says, “I'll tell her a mabari ate your romantic and meaningful last words,” which sort of makes it less funny.

[byblow]

“Loghain’s,” Alistair suggests. “Loghain’s mabari. But make sure she knows it wasn’t really the dog’s fault. It was Loghain’s for not training her properly.”

Someone needs to resent him for Alistair’s sake. Someone would need to. If he died.

If he died, he would want Kieran to have Duncan’s shield. The amulet hidden under his shirt should probably go to his mother, with his apologies for all the places it’s been broken and mended. Sabine could have back the wooden beads he’s worn braided around his wrist since she put them there—but if he died, he’d want them to the end. Someone can take them literally over his dead body.

But he isn’t going to die.

He says, “I’m not going to die. I can’t leave you alone with Morrigan.” Him, Morrigan. Who else does she have, here? “Who knows what she’ll say about me if I’m too dead to defend myself.”