open | then in the pounding of my heart

[faithlikeaseed]

WHO: Myr & you!
WHAT: new eyes who dis
WHEN: Throughout Harvestmere, backdated to the team's return from the Abbey on the White Cliffs.
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: potential cautionary cw for trauma & gore mentions

Their return was no triumphant one. What had started hopeful for alliance and aid from the Abbey on the White Cliffs had collapsed under the weight of the horror there and taken so many lives with it. One of the Inquisition's own is dead. A potential ally is lost. And a power from beyond the rifts has warped the world past bearing, making plain once more the awful danger rifters themselves could be.

As for Myr, subject to a miracle hidden in the heart of the whole thing--

He doesn't hide from his friends in the Inquisition, exactly. Doesn't shirk his duty or vanish into his quarters. But while he's often there in body there's some part of him missing in spirit, curled in on itself to reflect on what had happened.

i.

He spends his first full day back in the Gallows undoing his locator glyphs, one by one.

They could simply be unsnarled all at once without him walking the halls; he could have done it the moment he set foot on the Gallows' docks. But he has not seen the ugly place in person but for flashes granted by the Provost; he doesn't know the look of the halls, only how the glyphs stand in relation to one another and the sound of their chiming. Their removal, but for a handful, is a chance to learn his home of the past year by sight.

He pauses often, especially by inhabited rooms; he listens to echoes and sometimes stares concerningly long at a doorframe or a wall or a bit of tapestry. Sometimes it's with a look of puzzlement; sometimes with no look at all, his mind occupied with other troubles. He's surely run into someone in all that distraction.

ii. a.

The commission to head up the Chantry Relations project had been waiting for him on his return, piled up among his other correspondence. He'd not ever seen the seal on it before but it was different from the others in the pile and so he broke it open to read, in a halting way.

It took him three re-readings to fully comprehend the letter and set it gently back down atop the pile of its fellows.

"So that's why," he remarks to the air (or anyone outside the open door). "That's why You put me there."

From the first to the very awful last of it, miracle included. He makes a small helpless noise that might be a laugh or a sob.

b. (for Cade)

Of course, he began packing immediately--what there was to pack; much of what he'd kept in the Rifts and the Veil office was proper to that project and not his at all. There are Procedures and Forms to these things, though for the life of him they're all out of order in his head right now and all that remains is he needs to occupy the space allotted him.

He did remember at least to send a message to Cade--that he was back in the Gallows, that they'd be in a new office now--though somehow it slipped his mind to mention he didn't need help urgently for the move, being quite able to find his way between rooms with laden arms now.

iii.

It isn't all for sorrow. Whatever the cost of it, he'd been given a gift he couldn't not use; and slowly, as Harvestmere wears on, he grows into the joy of seeing again.

One morning is better than the others: He rises before dawn and goes for a run about the Gallows, flat out in a way he's not been able to for years. In no fit shape for it but game to push himself, he manages a lap at that pace and a second at a slower, before settling on the stairs down to the docks to watch the light break over the windless water.

"Good morning," he greets the first person who walks near him, smile bright. "D'you know, I didn't think the sea could be that still. It never feels it, riding across."

Comments

[faithlikeaseed]

The invocation of the Maker in juxtaposition with the question has Myr smiling--a weary, worn smile but a smile nevertheless--at her. "Ask Him," he says first, a fragment of irreverent humor escaped in the moment. Then, realizing that's not much of an explanation at all and unfairly flip besides: "A miracle is the only name I've got for it. There--we were in over our heads, at the abbey."

It feels entirely natural and right to make that confession to Inessa; she's one of his first friends in the Inquisition and had been there for him through so much else.

[circleprodigy]

"I...." Well, that's a lot to take in. But as true as that is for her, it must be infinitely more so for her friend. As Garahel sniffs at him, Inessa tries to cull her shock so as not to make Myr more self-conscious. Perhaps that's unavoidable, but still. He's probably got enough people gawking, as it is.

"...I admit, I want to hear all about it, if you want to share. It seems almost unbelievable, but here you are...and I can see your eyes, at last." She smiles gently at that, happy for him and also taking in what she couldn't before.

[faithlikeaseed]

It's funny--Myr's noticed people gawking, when he notices things at all, but the fog that's been on him since his return has kept it from mattering much. A friend's evident wonder does a better job of cutting through all that, pulling him into the present and making him notice the exact effect he's having on people--

But it's still distant for all of that. As if it's happening to someone else, though he's still the one who has to tell the story, to manage a smile and something of his old indomitable cheer for whoever's asking him about it-- A thing, he realizes, he can do gladly for Inessa. (And Garahel, who gets a solid rub between the ears.)

"And I, you." There's warmth to that. "It is good to see you at last, the both of you, even if this fellow's frightful large. I'm willing to talk about it--if you'd like to hear it all now."

[circleprodigy]

As Garahel rumbles contentedly at the affection given, provoking a warm smile from his mistress though she quickly focuses back to Myr. "We can walk with you, as you complete your work. I wouldn't stand in the way of your task. And if you would care for a tea break afterward, we would welcome the company."

[faithlikeaseed]

He considers the offer, gaze dropping to the top of Garahel's head once more as he finds himself fussing with one of the mabari's ears--gently, but even so he takes his fingers back before his incessant worrying can become a bother to the big dog. "Let's walk, then; I don't know I'll be through all of them today, so--"

The thread of the thought slips through his fingers and he's left wordless a moment. When he resumes it's not with his usual grace: "--a break would be--it would be lovely. You might let me know when you're tired of walking...?"

Because he's apt to sink into focus on the task, and the story, and forget things like that, in the state he's in.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa nods, though she seems unconcerned. "I will, though I doubt a walk around the Gallows will have my winded any time soon. Life hasn't been so comfortable that I've lost all my stamina." Besides, Garahel won't allow either of them to persist past the point of comfort, the mabari happy to accompany them and sniff at everything along the way. "As you were saying...?"

augh please forgive, this dropped out of my inbox somehow

[faithlikeaseed]

A laugh escapes Myr at that--troubled, but a laugh all the same. "Call it wishful thinking for things to be that settled, then," he temporizes--then gestures them on toward the next glyph, after a moment's feeling for it through the Fade.

"I was saying," he picks up from her, "...I--I'd said we were in over our heads, I think. The people of the abbey--they'd had a rift open up on top of them, months before we got there."

[circleprodigy]

Matching his pace, Inessa listens with a slight wince. "After seeing the damage those rifts can do, even briefly, I hate to think about the effects of having one around long-term. They must have had no peace ever since."

[faithlikeaseed]

"You'd be surprised," Myr says wryly. "The weather was miserable and they couldn't keep a fire lit to save their lives--but beyond that, they were calm and happy when we got there. The place was stuffed with pilgrims and they were busy repairing the damage the rift'd caused--and putting up improvements to the abbey. Volunteer work--you know, they'd given all their money away to us."

Now that he's found his footing--metaphorically--the words and thoughts flow a little easier, though there's still the odd pause as he speaks, eyes clouding over with thought. "We didn't even know there was a rift there until quite late, it was so quiet."

[circleprodigy]

Inessa arches an eyebrow, indeed caught off-guard by that revelation. After a moment, though, she grows thoughtful and nods. "Now that you mention it, I remember that cult in the Hinterlands that resided near a rift for some time before the Herald was able to seal it. I suppose one can become used to nearly any situation, if made to endure it long enough."

She still questions their sanity, choosing to live near it, but the fact that they weren't all dead by the time the Herald had arrived is a point in their favor, at least. But she doesn't continue that subject, interested in hearing about the more recent past.