faderift | open | then in the pounding of my heart

Entry tags:

open | then in the pounding of my heart

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."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Myr's omission means that Cade is quite prepared to do all or at least most of the moving himself, and is already in the office when Myr walks in. Carrying a crate filled with books, Cade is on his way to the doorway when he sees Myr come in, opens his mouth to say good morning, and instead gasps and drops the crate on his foot.

And Myr's just about to say good morning in turn when it occurs to him--about the time the books hit the ground and intervening foot--that he couldn't expect everyone to already know what had happened in the abbey without his saying anything.

"Oh, ff--Cade, Maker's breath, I'm sorry--" His first instinct is to cast a healing spell for Cade's foot, and that's stupid, so he goes for the second and closes up the distance between them to take up the crate himself.

Hopefully Cade doesn't have the same idea.

Six is often up in the morning, taking part in her morning rituals; a run, her training programme, her prayers. She tries to reach Sarenrae even though she knows that none of her whispers can be heard and she pushes herself more and more each day. She needs to prove herself, needs to be strong enough, and there's an uncertainty that comes with it all - all tied up with her confusion about religion here, the place of Rifters, what she ought to be doing with herself.

Her run slows into a jog, breathing hard, her loose cotton shirt hanging from her shoulders. Her bulk is still in place, muscles heavy as she shakes her head and pushes her hair from her face. She can hear a buzzing in her ears, but she turns her head over when she hears a voice.

"Boats are not designed for comfort," Six replies, breathing sharply between her words. "I am no sailor, but I imagine you need a hardy stomach."

He's got to tip his head further back than he has to take in the whole of her from his seat on the stairs--and the look in his eyes is not without some admiration, not a man for a woman but one fighter for another. There's someone who takes care of herself--and for that her identity's no surprise to him at all when she speaks. Of course this would be how Adalia's sister looked, given Inquisition scuttlebutt about her zeal for practice.

(It's almost like seeing Liesel again, but older and blonder.)

"No," he agrees, still smiling, "they're not; I'm quite sure they're mobile torture devices for those of us not gifted with those 'sea legs' one hears so much about."

His own breath sufficiently caught and his muscles threatening to stiffen up on him if he stays on the cold stairs any longer, he clambers back to his feet with some grace. "I don't know we've spoken before but I know your voice and your sister. You're Ser Six?" The honorific is just a note tentative--she'd been in the joust in the tourney (had that only been six months ago?) which meant she was near enough a knight of some kind, and looked it.

Most times Six barely notes the way that people have to lift their head to look at her - she is used to being a bulky woman, being large and tall and taking up space, and she's often been frustrated by the awkwardness of it. When she was younger she had felt somewhat off about the whole thing, as if she was gangly and too much for anyone. She took the height of her elven blood and the muscular size of the human to make something... Odd.

At least she's used to the craning and the looks. She tries not to imagine what people are thinking.

"My father," said with an edge of something, a tension, "was a sailor. He said much the same. Sea legs or do not bother."

Six moves, stretching her arms out, not thinking much more of the conversation until she hears her name. She supposes she should be getting used to people having heard of her after the months she's spend in Thedas, but it still comes as something of a surprise. Adalia is hardly quiet, at times, and Six knows that their blood relation is going to become more common knowledge.

"Just Six," she shakes her head. "But it is nice to meet one of my sister's friends." And, awkwardly, she offers something like a bow.

That is a tone to keep away from, a line not to pursue, and so Myr lets the talk of boats go gracefully without comment. There's better to speak of than that.

"Ah," a syllable of understanding, "you were in the joust in Wycome and I'd thought it restricted to knighthood or those near." He offers her a bow in turn, his own hardly courtly and rough for disuse, but there's something delighted in it. (That he can see such a greeting and return it without guessing.)

"It's good to meet you as well; she's always spoken of you highly," and there's something a little sad, a little troubled in his words; not for what he knows of Six, but to speak of Adalia and how she had been when she was well, and now she...isn't. "She and I don't agree much on matters of faith but she's got such admiration for your belief-- I've wanted to meet the woman who inspired her in that for some time."

He looks back out over the ocean once he's said that--not for nervousness but because there's so much of it he can't help his eye being caught--and rolls his shoulders idly. Thinks of saying more but bridles his tongue, well aware he can let it run away with him and overwhelm the more laconic among them.

Reminders of her father have been coming thick and fast of late and Six would like to step away from it and avoid the matter altogether; she would like to imagine she is free from his clutches and his memory. It is not so, and recent ventures with Marcoulf and the hayloft have reminded her of her weaknesses in a way she would rather like to pretend to be ignorant of.

"In my world I was something known as a Paladin. It seems as though this was close enough to the ideals of knighthood that I was permitted an attempt, even if I do not have one here." She would like to have her Paladin mantle back, to have all the things that were familiar to her returned to her, but it does not seem possible here in Thedas. It seems, actually, that she is somewhat bereft, even now months later.

Thinking of her sister, though... Since Tevinter things have been distant between the two of them. Six knows it is best not to push on these matters, best not to demand, to force Adalia to speak with her, but... She worries and she fears. She knows more of her sister than her sister does of her, in the end, and it makes some parts of her heart ache just a little.

"She has not had the same experiences that I have had," Six admits quietly, her hand raising to the amulet around her neck. It's a clean, well loved thing, shining even in the soft light between them, clearly well cared for. "My devotion to my God is not something I can force her to understand. Sarenrae is the true guiding light in my life."

And, Six thinks quietly, she's rather lost without her.

The gesture's just visible out the corner of Myr's eye and he looks over again to take note of the pendant. (How strange to remember you could miss things on first look but they'd been there all along, unobserved; not like dreams, where something didn't exist for the eye to perceive until you thought of it and so everything beneath current notice was sketched-in, vague, assumed.) Its shape pulls at the familiar--the wings, the sword--and he can't help but be reminded of the Sword of Mercy and all it's come to stand for.

Pray Sarenrae's paladins have as well as the best of the Maker's champions; though from all he's heard, they have.

"A knight for your god, then." His tone is unabashed, admiring. "Instead of a noble patron or--your Chantry, if you've anything like one." Better than what a knight-enchanter or templar could boast, truer, and for a moment he's envious though it's a clean sort of envy; the kind that desires what another has without wanting it wrenched away from her.

Though whatever he willed, it may have already happened. "Adalia said She spoke to you, from time to time--that you knew Her as you knew anyone else." A careful pause, weighted and worried.

"Does She still?" Would the Maker recognize a spirit wearing Myr's face as one of His children, if he appeared somewhere other than Thedas? Would He care?

Julius happens to be passing, when Myr makes his remark to no one. He's a man who understands discretion, but he is also a man who is curious, and he's friendly enough with Myr to presume a little. So he pauses, poking his head in the door.

"That's why wha... oh." He stops not because the answer to the question is evident, precisely, but because Myr is reading a letter, and that's going to take a quick adjustment mentally.

"Oh, welcome back!" The cheerful exclamation comes from down the hall, accompanied by the close of the door, Nari's voice getting louder as she approaches. "Putting something new into the glyphs?"

Myr looks up from that very letter with his own look of surprise--for it's been continually strange to hear a friend's voice and see a total stranger attached to it. "Julius," he starts--stops, unsure where one goes from here. Surprise! suggests itself from some perverse part of his mind, a spark of wholly inappropriate humor breaking through the gloom. It's a struggle not to say it and while he wins that one, he loses at keeping one corner of his mouth from twitching up in a lopsided smile.

Not a happy smile, but a smile all the same. He holds up the letter for want of anything to explain the sudden mirth. "I'm the new head of Chantry Relations, it seems," he says of it.

Edited 2018-10-27 01:41 (UTC)

Myr doesn't seem to hear her, at first; all his attention is on the glyph in front of him. Or appears to be--he's been standing like that for nearly a minute, fingers outstretched over it but nothing apparently happening to alter its glow or chiming.

Only when she's nearly upon him does he snap out of it, letting his hand fall and looking--looking--her way. (He realizes he'd imagined her looking more like Sina, somehow, as he does.) "Thank you--removing them," he says, absently, without thinking to explain that.

Though it's probably obvious why.

And he hasn't thought to explain that either, nor that he should--nor won't until the rest of his mind catches up with him.

Nari stops suddenly, mid-step, seeing the green of them. Eyes. Myr's eyes. She notices the lack of the blindfold second, and is amused in some distant separate way that that was the order the realizations had come in, although that amusement doesn't make it to her face, which has a rather spellshocked expression slapped onto it instead. Processing.

"Oh. You... Huh. I... always thought they'd be blue." What kind of a thing is that to say? What do you say?

"...How?"

Somehow, the uncomposed guileless innocence of I always thought they'd be blue cracks through the shell around Myr better than anything else Nari could've chosen to say. "It goes better with blond," he says, aware it's inane and not caring. "I s'pose."

He lays his hand over the glyph to silence it, this time, the incessant chiming finally become annoying. "A miracle," he says once he has. "Or that's the only name I have for it."

Because even knowing it wasn't the Maker's raw power flowing through the world, it was a miracle yet.

Perhaps bizarrely, she wants to reassure him about it.

"No, no, green is nice with—" Nari squints slightly. Are they green? They're very pretty, either way. Lighter than hers. Have they got little flecks of gold?

Aren't eyes lovely?

She's staring isn't she. Suddenly she looks self-conscious, running her hand back through the little braids of her hair. (That's what the clicking's been, those little beads of carved wood and bone scattered throughout).

"—they're nice." Nari finishes lamely. And because she, like Myr himself, has something deep inside her that burns for reasons no matter the circumstance, "A miracle like magic we don't know? Or like ...something else?" And then finally registering his sort of absence, she gestures back towards the room she shares with Cade. "Um. D'you want some tea?"

Six does not even try to hide the pendant; she wears it proudly, no matter what other members of the Inquisition or the populace of Thedas might think of her. It might be dangerous, especially for those who are more intense in their faith towards Andraste and the Maker, or the other religions that she is beginning to learn are spreading across the world. She will not be shamed into hiding her faith or her feelings towards Sarenrae, no matter what people think.

Her thumb presses into the wing and she breathes out gently. It calms her, soothes the rattling of her heart.

"Something of the kind. She gives me my strength and I spread her message, as best I can." It's a good message - redemption, bringing people to the light, giving them second chances. She can appreciate those, even if she thinks there are times when she can't rationalise it for herself; she cannot, ever, think of how she might do that for her father.

Turning her head, she looks at Myr, pausing for a moment. Another sore spot; she breathes out, gently, before she nods, trying to manage herself better. She must be looking a little foolish.

"I did. She was a friend, a - a support. She guided me and helped me when I needed her most." When Adrian had died, when she had finally made her Oath, when she had been keen for something to grasp, some thread of hope.

"I cannot hear her here. She does not answer my prayers, but I made them anyway. I do not wish for her to think I have turned from her, if she can hear."

The smile wins a small one back from Julius, who generally does take his cues from the other party. "Congratulations... twice over, it seems?" He's not going to press for an explanation about the part that's not a promotion, though his curiosity is evident. Instead, he says, "Welcome to trying to do too much with too little, the discerning Kirkwall resident's favorite pastime. You'll make more of it than most, I suspect."

It's not long before the padding of a certain large canine is heard from behind, Garahel darting toward Myr and letting out a friendly bark. That his bipedal friend is busy doesn't deter him at all, especially since it's been a while since they've enjoyed each other's company. Inessa follows, a little distracted but Garahel's barking gets her attention so instead of ordering him to follow her up the central tower, the slight elven woman allows the detour.

"Garahel, what is--oh, Myrobalan? Hello again." She approaches while Garahel is a wriggly, happy circle of canine love all around him. "Is there trouble with the glyphs?" She thought she saw him at another earlier on, but that was at a distance and she'd had a meeting to attend. Now, however, she can give him her full attention.

In a break from her normal routine, Korrin is around and up early. She's not usually a morning person -at all- but for some reason found herself itching to leave her dockside apartment and head on over to the Gallows. Some training or exercise and a good soak seem an ideal start for the day rather than squeeze out a little more sleep when her body just won't cooperate.

The tall Vashoth woman has just passed through the entrance of the Inquisition headquarters, stretching a little as she yawns, when a familiar voice reaches her ears. She starts down at the elven mage, violet eyes narrowing for a moment before she stops short.

"You--the fuck, didn't you have a blindfold before? I wasn't imagining things, was I?"

There comes, one morning not long after Myr moves himself into the Chantry Relations office, a knock on Elven Artifacts' door.

Strategically, it's probably a poor move for the new leader of Chantry Relations to be seen consorting with with a Dalish elf for any reason whatsoever; surely, Myr's aware already there are elements in his own project that would want to see him right back out of it for any sign of impropriety. But: First, screw that, as he's friends with the Dalish and nothing's about to change that; and second, given historical tension (and more than) between the Chantry and the elves they'd now call allies against Corypheus, he's every reason to seek to ease that. And to do it, he needs more and more correct information than he has--and who better to ask that information from than his fellow project leader.

So: Here he is on Sorrel's doorstep, a sheaf of papers and his usual offering of food in-hand. (Starkhaven tattie scones today; someone in the kitchen was experimenting for breakfast.)

Korrin's reaction is so far from the others Myr's been getting--and the day so lovely already--that it gets a helpless laugh out of him. (Which spares him gawping; he knew she was Vashoth, remembered her voice, but now she's the first one he's seen as well as met and isn't she something?)

"You weren't," he manages, once he's got control of himself again. "I did, and I'm heartily sorry for giving you a moment of doubt there."

Edited (and of course i use the blindfold icon accidentally like a champ) 2018-10-29 03:07 (UTC)

Politics are a delicate thing. Rumors run wild, reputations are won or lost on the turn of the gossip mill, or worse. And here's a chantry elf on his doorstep, so that's something he has to deal with people saying about him now. Thank you, Myr.

Friends might be pushing it.

"Good morning," He says, because he was raised to be polite and also because there are scones, "Can I help you?"

Maybe it's official business. Maybe it's artifact related. Maybe the scones, are for Sorrel. He hadn't had any breakfast.

Is it rude if the one you're staring at is staring back in turn? Because Myr surely is, now that he's shaken off enough of the fog to wake his curiosity. The braids and beads have his attention first, puzzling to his eyes like anything else intricate and begging a much longer look at them to sort out the mazing patterns--

He realizes what he's doing the same instant she does, averting his gaze back to the glyph with a matching air of self-consciousness. "--Thank you," he manages, as a spinal reflex, though it's the weight of his meaning it all the same. "Like--both of those, I think." There'd been a report, or would be a report, and he'd argued half-heartedly that full disclosure be made though there were very, very wise reasons not to do it, and--

He isn't sure how much he can say, or how much his heart will bear his saying; certainly not out here in the halls where anything might be overheard. Besides-- "Tea would be lovely. I don't know," and there's faint chagrin in his tone as he realizes how truthful that is, "when I last took a break."

Which is bad, for his self-regard to slip so far; he knows better when he's in his right mind. But nothing's seemed quite right since the abbey, the whole world tiled out of place and put to question.

At least it's mutually assured reputation-tarnishing.

Or something like that.

"Can I help you?" Sorrel asks, and wonder of wonders Myr finds himself temporarily at a loss for words because-- He's not sure exactly what to call Sorrel, all his instincts for hierarchy and politeness upset when confronted with someone outside that system. (Thus ever with the Dalish, more often to their harm than anyone else's. Thus all the more reason for respect.) He'd used "First" last time and felt on solid ground there but--hadn't that changed?

He's not sure. He settles the conflict by ignoring it entirely. "I've a few things I wanted to ask about the Dalish--and since they're weighty matters on an empty stomach I thought I'd bring breakfast." A pause, a beat, a flicker behind his usual sunny smile. "Though if now's not a good time I'll leave the scones with you anyhow."

Sorrel considers this offer. On one hand, this might be a trick; he's had a lot of this, from time to time, and always it starts seemingly-honest. And then it...degenerates. Well, alright, not always. There were children. And... Adasse...

...and scones.

And, technically, since Merril fucking Sabrae stole his plans for the week, because she's a manipulative, rude, vicious, and frankly impressive person who Sorrel respects deeply, against his will, Sorrel technically has nothing planned for the day except paperwork. So he sighs, not as deeply as he'd like, and steps back to admit Myr to his office.

"Come on, then. I'll at least hear you out."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 6

open | then in the pounding of my heart

b for meee

oh no cade your foot

iii

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ii.a. -- If you had a better idea, though, lmk and we can backtrack!

i

no this is excellent!!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i

iii

For Sorrel

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject