[open] you are gone, you are gone, you are gone

[doneisdone]

WHO: Teren and anyone who wants to bug her
WHAT: she sad
WHEN: after Loghain's departure, before the tourney
WHERE: Kirkwall, mostly the Gallows
NOTES:

She saw him off, at least.
Teren remembers being wrenched from someone, her nails digging so deeply she left faint scars on their arms long after the iron door was shut behind her. She was in her thirties then, young but not a child, aware of the world's little cruelties but not so deeply yet that she stopped believing Zerique would come for her.

Of course, Zerique never did. And there was no one else until Loghain, whose departure isn't violent or forcible; he has things to do elsewhere, they'll keep in contact, there's a short but affectionate kiss before he turns and makes his way down the hill and away.
Teren stands still as a stone as he takes his leave, remaining there long after he's disappeared from view, her dark eyes veiled and her expression absent.


When she returns to her quarters, she doesn't lock herself in or avoid anyone. That would suggest a depth of feeling and vigor of emotion that, should she betray it, she's not sure she could ever recover. Instead, she goes about her work, cares for Boots, makes her purchase orders, darns the Wardens' socks, with the sort of mindlessness that certain rifters might attribute to automatons.

Nothing is wrong, she insists, if asked. The mildness of her response, her total disinterest in rising to her usual curtness, speaks otherwise.
She'll be fine.

Comments

[aforethought]

It's a room — not Teren's quarters — she typically avoids. A face she does. And all that's only good sense.

But the weather outside is pissing with some late spring squall, and she's spent the better part of an hour edging closer from the door, farther from the wind and rain. There's none of the usual spines grown to this one, today, and that's — weird. Too much a stranger for concern, but that just settles it stranger. A flock of crows gone up before a journey, or the way dogs get before lightning.

At last, when she can’t take the silence any more, can take the thought of retreat even less:

"Ain't they know how to do their own?"

The socks. Those are definitely too big for Teren.

[justice_is_blond]

He drops by her rooms the day after, bottle of something the vendor promised would put hair on the drinker's chest but also and more importantly they promised it would take everything away for a time.

"Teren?" He raps on the open door briefly before coming in, invading before he's told to go. With her odd calm he's not sure she'd send him away but he'd rather cover his bases. "You have cups, I assume. Share this with me?"

It sounds like a question. It might even be one, to a tiny degree... but only to that tiny degree. He's worried about her and leaving her alone doesn't seem like something a friend would do.

[doneisdone]

In truth, it's probably good that people are coming around here and there, and perhaps this is why Teren hasn't shut them out entirely; none have seen her at her absolute lowest, and while this still isn't, it's still something of a dangerous place. She's sitting by the window, sewing untouched in her lap, and she turns to look at Anders when he enters.
Looking at first like she wants to protest, she instead just shrugs one shoulder and looks back out at the window. "Cups are on the shelf," she murmurs.

[doneisdone]

It's one of the many stockrooms, in this case the one set aside (or possibly just avoided) for Warden provisions, and Teren is hiding in it because it's technically a place she should be, even if what she's doing here has no relevance to the room's contents.
She looks up when That Girl speaks, and though a faint smirk ghosts onto her lips, it doesn't last long. "Most people, you'll find," she muses, looking down at the socks, "don't know anything."

[byblow]

Alistair isn't sorry to see Loghain go, but he is sorry for other things. The loss of his expertise. The extra work here, even if whatever he's doing off elsewhere is important as well. The feelings of whoever is, for whatever irrational reason, sad to lose his presence. But he leaves Teren alone, because that seems to be what she wants, and she's one of the few people whose wishes he cares about enough to avoid bothering them when they seem like they don't want to be bothered.

So when he is bothering her, several days later, it's while she's already out doing something else, and it's for Warden business.

"I think we need to start selling things," he says. The paper in his hands is full of numbers. It's not his strong suit, but he can grasp the bottom line, which is that they're running out of liquid assets. But they have other things. Unused weapons and supplies. Land. "Or we may be able to arrange something with the Inquisition just to loan them land—Griffon Wing Keep is ours, really, even if they've done us a favor clearing the Ventaori out. We have other fortresses."

[aforethought]

"Dunno about that."

She slouches on her feet, in a passable imitation of someone too dumb for cheek. But draws a bit closer, almost leans against a crate.

"Learn when they get cold feet, I reckon. How’d you pick the colour?"

Regardless of what colour she’s using here and now.

[doneisdone]

As someone who made much of her business as a young woman passing as too dumb for cheek, Teren has a sense about Melys, even if she doesn't show it. She does, however, give her a funny look in response to her question, then looks blandly back down at the socks as if seeing them for the first time.
"I didn't," she answers, "someone else made them."

[doneisdone]

Being out doing things is par for the course at the moment, and Teren cares about as much about the current task as she does any other. She hardly glances at Alistair or his paper, only giving a mechanical nod.
"All right," she blandly agrees, and despite likely being among the people actually handling the sale, seems content to leave it at that. She never did speak to Alistair about what was going on with Loghain, perhaps would've left it for weeks or months or years to come, keeping it out of his sight and close to her chest so as not to muddle the relationship she's built with the lad. Perhaps. But now that the opportunity's come and gone, there's just emptiness left behind, a feeling like she's yet again lied to him, and that coming clean would be pointless. The damage is done, whether he knows it or not.

[aforethought]

"Nah," She gestures idly (too idly) with a pinky to the yarn. "The holes. You gonna patch them with the same ones?"

Melys shakes her head, at last eases down, a little reluctant and all at once.

"You've got to do it different, so folks can tell was mended."

[doneisdone]

A small spark of irritation registers on Teren's face as Melys persists, though her glance to the girl is quick. "I haven't got time to perfectly match the colors," she mutters.

[aforethought]

"But you got time to fix them up on that lot?"

She takes the (admittedly high-risk) gamble that Teren won’t grab her stump to swipe a ball of yarn towards her, swipe it up in her fingers and squint.

"Matching's a fool's game. ’S never gonna be how it was. Act like nothing gone and changed, just looks shit." Her chin tips aside to regard the sock. "I'd go green."

[doneisdone]

It's... a point. And with it, Teren's frustration rises, because she's being forced to think about the job when she'd rather forget everything. "Or you could go out," she suggests to Melys, with an unprompted snap.

[justice_is_blond]

There's no arguing. It scares him more than anything else she could do. Anders grabs the cups and pours, generously for her and just a little amount for him, before joining her at the window.

"I... I know you won't talk. But I want to help, if I can. If there's a way to." He isn't a healer for the sole reason that he can heal. It's also that he wants to. He cares about people, particularly those he sees as his own, and Teren is one of them.

[doneisdone]

She takes the cup, but just stares at it for now, continuing to sit quietly and mostly motionless.
"You can't," finally comes the answer, quietly, almost gently. "There's naught to be done."

[aforethought]

"It's raining." A flat look back — that's alright, a bit a chance to gauge how close she is to danger. "Give one of them needles here."

This, at least, you only need one hand for. The day she helps the wardens is the day she lays down to die, but this ought to be different. Somehow.

[doneisdone]

A quiet eyeroll, but Teren doesn't push. At first she regards Melys with some degree of mistrust, but eventually deciding she doesn't care anymore, she sighs and withdraws a needle from her little sewing pouch and hands it over.