Say Hello To Goodbye | Openish

[writteninblood]

WHO: Sorrel and anyone who wants to say hello, or indeed goodbye, to him
WHAT: Sorrel leaving Kirkwall, spending some time in the forest, then coming back to Kirkwall like a week or two later, in disgrace
WHEN: The first few weeks of Drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall, Clans Ashara/Dahlasanor
NOTES: The craziest of crazies. Kirkwall, girls, dancing, naked, Mom!? Argument, exile, fleeing the scene, hiding in a dumpster, crashing on your couch for a week because technically I’m ho~omeless!

No, I am lost
My wounded heart
Resides back home in
Pieces strewn about
The graveyard of my lost love
For only...

The Road between Kirkwall and anyplace at all is hard and muddy by turns, this time of year, melted by sun and unexpected balmy wind, frozen again each night into ruts and fissures, as is the nature of roads in winters. The road too, is fraught with danger, the sides of the path lined with opportunities for those with less scruples than most-- and the forests, known to beasts and magic and the Dalish themselves, are not safer, for the unwary traveler. Times are lean, in this stretch of the year, and what generosity there is has stretched with the weeks until it's leaner still.

That's the road Sorrel has to walk, there and back again.

But on the other end, whether to Kirkwall or away from it, there burns a warm fire, a hearth with friendly faces, and family, of one sort or another.

[ Feel free to respond to the subthreads as appropriate ]

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[writteninblood]

"I know what I must look like," Sorrel is quick to reassure her, if he can; he feels at least as wretched as he looks, "I... I don't know how to explain..."

He does, really. But how to begin? How to force the words out? How to admit that he has no idea what 'wrong' might even be, let alone that he is or isn't that much.

"I'm not hurt or anything. You don't need to worry, not about me."

[wheretheferngrows]

This is all completely out of Fern's area of expertise--she's a gardener, albeit a magical one, and not especially good at helping anyone, even someone she cares about, muddle through personal issues. At least, not when she doesn't know what they are.

"Well--all right," she allows, not sounding remotely convinced, and gives his shoulder an awkward sort of pat-pat. She doesn't get up to leave, though.

...After a moment of awkward silence, she peers back at him again. "All right, I know I said I wouldn't pry, but what's wrong, something is obviously terribly wrong."

[writteninblood]

"I... No, no. It's-- I'll be fine."

And he will. Wounds heal, scrapes paved over with new skin, and cuts closed, the body made whole. That was true of the heart as well; what once bled and seemed it would bleed forever would one day be scab, and then scar, and then it would seem normal again. A new normal.

It's a weak enough lie that Sorrel is ashamed of it. He has that much pride left, somehow; to be ashamed of himself. He takes a deep breath and holds it. Sorrel decides that, if nothing else, telling Fern the truth will make good practice.

"I... Left. I left the clan. And came back here," He stops. That, is the truth, isn't it? The unvarnished truth. There can be no mistaking it, "So. That's the truth."

[wheretheferngrows]

The way Fern's eyebrows draw together some and her eyes flick to one side, then back again, make it clear that, at least at first, she doesn't understand. She isn't Dalish; to her, a clan still seems to have more in common with a mobile alienage, or the collection of remote but connected farms she grew up with outside Ansburg.

She gives her head a modest little shake. "...I left home to come here, and I'll probably go back, one day," she points out--her fist curls reflexively around the anchor shard in her palm, don't think about that. "Can't you go back one day, too, if you want to?"

[writteninblood]

Sorrel opens his mouth for a moment, then exhales all at once, almost able to smile at that. Could he go home, just if he wanted to?

"I could," And that was true, too, "But it's not that simple."

He thinks for a moment, searching the dim room, and the ceiling, and finally the floor for an answer that would suit, an explanation that would make sense. It wasn't long ago that he'd been so angry, and that somehow that feeling had transferred into a strange, passionate eloquence. What had he even said, then, to put his case to the Keepers?

"...Fern," He said, finally, looking down at her hand, at the peek of green leaking through an imperfect seal between two fingers, "Do you know what an Arlathvhen is?"

[wheretheferngrows]

At that question, she frowns further and gives an uncertain shake of her head. "No... at least, I don't think so. I don't think Sina--" A hesitant pause, one in which she reaches up to touch the scarf she now wears around her neck. A little memento; she can't be begrudged that, right? "...I don't think she ever told me about it. What is it?"

[writteninblood]

"It's something like a secret meeting, the great conclave of Dalish clans. Usually, Keepers don't even tell the rest of the clan-- because, it's the only time we really gather, as a People," Sorrel tells her voice pitched low, as if simply admitting it existed was some kind of secret, as if he were imparting the knowledge of something precious, and beautiful, "Even if a clan is too far away, they'll send representatives. It happens every ten years, somewhere and when that we tell no-one, unless they absolutely have to know."

He takes a breath, then, and seems almost to settle. Story-telling is a familiar mode of thought, and a comforting one. Sorrel can be this, and let the black terror ease back on its haunches, just for a little while.

"We share all the knowledge we've gathered, over the last ten years. We exchange artifacts, documents, maps, stories, halla, and people. Many families divide or join, at the Arlathvhen. It's what makes us Dalish, together as one People, even when we're apart. And this year is the year of the Arlathvhen: so, if our clan is going to need another mage to continue our blood, it will be this year, or else likely not at all."

He scoffs, almost fond then, "Our blood. What I mean is, my blood."

[wheretheferngrows]

Fern listens, and listens hard, but so much of what she hears only compounds how little she really knows--or understands--about the Dalish, even after the time she's spent in their company.

"So," she starts after a hesitant pause, looking off to the side as the contemplates, then gradually to his face again. "You'd... have to remarry?" It's the only logical conclusion her mind can reach, and then she frowns again, looking wounded for him. "But it's too soon..!" After Sina.

[writteninblood]

"That couldn't matter to the Keeper! It's do it now or there's ten years to wait-- if I even live that long, who would even want me?" This self-deprecation is paired with a shrug, "But I-- Fern. I don't... want. I don't think I can ever do that."

There is a pause.

"Remarry, I mean."

Sorrel stops speaking once again and pulls his hand down his face, scrubbing at the weariness in his eyes and taking the time for a deep breath. No, this is-- it sounds ridiculous, it must sound ridiculous, to Fern at least.

"Look, it's... complicated."

[wheretheferngrows]

"Look, it's... complicated."

That earns him a look of some incredulity, Fern's eyebrows arching high towards her hairline. She scoffs a little and looks away, suddenly uncomfortable for a completely different reason. Surely, out of anyone Sorrel knows, he should expect for Fern to understand 'complicated.'

She fiddles her fingers together in her lap a moment. Then, after exhaling tiredly, she blurts out, "I was engaged, you know. When I first got here." A pause. "I'm not, anymore. Not after.." You know.

[writteninblood]

"I didn't know that," Sorrel tells her, a little hoarse, and then realizes that there's a great deal he doesn't know about Fern. Vaguely, he supposed her from a circle, or trained by someone who was, but-- circle mages didn't marry, so of course...

Not for the first time, Sorrel can't met her eyes. He's been a fool, again.

"Was it bad? Leaving him?"

[wheretheferngrows]

"Was it bad? Leaving him?"

"Probably," Fern replies, which would probably be an odd response for anyone to provide to the question Sorrel's just asked, until she clarifies quietly with, "...considering I didn't tell him, or anyone, that I was leaving to join the Grey Wardens." She glances sideways at Sina's widower; there's a small, embarrassed smile tugging at the corners of her lips, but it doesn't reach her expressive blue eyes. She raises and then drops her hands in apparent exasperation at her past self. What an idiot kid she'd been. "That's why I came here in the first place, to join the Wardens."

She's quiet for a moment, her gaze dropping to rest on the ground but seeming to gaze through it. "I sort of expected he'd... you know, get the message when I left. But he didn't. He's here now," she says, gesturing around the Gallows, "working as a servant."

A slow breath in, and then out again. She bites her lower lip. "I think I hurt him very badly, doing this. I think I hurt all of them--" her family, ostensibly, "--but I wouldn't take it back now, not for the whole world. I can't undo the hurt, and if I hadn't left I... I think we'd both just be miserable without knowing why."

[writteninblood]

Sorel listened to that, brow furrowed, but said nothing of his thoughts. He hadn't the right to judge, particularly given his own choices. Cyril had chosen himself, his heart, over the future of his blood. Ellana had abandoned The People entirely, and Pel had chosen that blood over the Keeper's will; to raise young Sina as her own, in her own way. But it wasn't about that, after all, not for Sorrel.

"It isn't about Sina, really. I mean, it is, but not-- not like that," It wasn't, he meant to say, as if Sina had somehow revealed to him some repulsion for women or something. Sorrel had known himself. He'd done his best not to, of course, and to never admit it, not even in the privacy of his own thoughts but once the words were out, they could never be recalled. And that was something Sina had done, letting him free, in her own indelible way, "I can't help but know that somewhere out there, right now, there's a Dalish mage who will be at the Arlathvhen this summer. And she'll be looking for a new clan, and she'll be everything Ashara might want in a First, so the Keeper will..."

Not lie, of course. It would be a terrible disloyalty to say so; he's done it once already. Sorrel swallows the urge behind a bitter laugh and breathes.

"So instead of going where she's needed, where she'll be happy, that mage girl will go to our clan, only to find... I can't ruin someone else's life like that, Fern."

Sina only cast away her regrets when she went to the Beyond. Sorrel couldn't let that repeat, not if he could stop it, not if the only thing he could possibly gain by letting it happen would be misery, and failure, and all the same darkness for himself.

"...So I ruined my own, instead."