What Comes Due | Open (with prompt for Myr)

[writteninblood]

WHO: Sorrel
WHAT: Dietary supplements
WHEN: A good bit after Kirkwail
WHERE: Just outside Kirkwall
NOTES: hunting gore, ect.

Winter in Kirkwall was about as unpleasant as anything else in Kirkwall. It had a scrubby, grasping character, and if it had been a person it would have been a bent old man, steely-haired, dressed in rags, and in possession of a lengthy bankroll which he would neither evidence nor share. In such a manner did the flowers sleep under the begrudging snow around the city; secret, miserly, and invisible.

It was, in a word, absolutely miserable hunting. Even if the hungry habits of the city's ordinary population of scavengers had not made it so, nature herself would have. Sorrel quietly attributed it to some unheard-of curse from Andruil, but did not share this opinion with anyone when he went out into it. Sometimes, you just need to know your best audience; Kirkwall was not it. And anyways, he was out of practice enough that there was probably no curse here not going by the more ordinary name of 'laziness,' not that hunting was his job. Sorrel left Kirkwall in sensible leather footwraps, robes left behind in favor of practical, close-bodied leathers, bow, arrows, and kit in tow. He was going to get the hell out of this city, just for a little while. He needed the air, and the quiet, and the clean empty hate of the world to wash away the clinging, personal hatred that came with living in the Gallows, or in Kirkwall at all.

And it felt good, to breathe.




_i._for myr_
....And, as promised, he brought Myr along with him! The weather had begun grey and sullen, lightening slowly over the morning until the sky shone with that particular purity of blue that was unique to bright winter afternoons. The cold was biting, even though the wind was low, but Sorrel paid it no mind with the sun warming his back, and was happy to chat quietly with Myr along their path. Luck, and a lot of trudging through an ice-backed skin of snow-over-mud eventually found them a chance when they crossed a deer-path, and they'd turned to follow it without much real hope, though in a cheerful spirit.

Or, Sorrel felt cheerful. The point of this was, in a small part, to get a very petty sort of comeuppance, and that is always an emotion to warm one's heart, even when your fingertips are numb and tingling.

"What do you think of it, so far?" He was presently asking, with that very same cheer. Sorrel turned a grin on Myr as he did so; alright, he was enjoying it, and wouldn't apologize. It's a beautiful day.

Comments

[chainlightning]

The screech of a griffon from above is likely not what Sorrel was expecting once he got out of the city. It happens nonetheless, a griffon circling above for a moment before the rider on its back angles it down. It's a fairly quick process; Ghostface dives down and lands with wings splayed, screeching again - proudly, based on the pleased lashing of his tail and his raised head. Merrill is on his back and she laughs, patting the pleased creature on the neck before waving to Sorrel.

"We saw you leaving the city and thought we'd come say hi!"

The possible threat level of a diving griffon had not, apparently, occurred to her.

[writteninblood]

Fortunately for Sorrel, he prefers to live. Or maybe, that should be, unfortunately for Merril, because at the first realization, Sorrel had honored the age-old tradition of those threatened from the air, and took a dive into the snow under the nearest prickly bush which he could find. It was indeed a very prickly one, studded all over with spikes as long as his palm, and richly evergreen besides, with red berries.

"What?" Ah, but. It's only Merril? "What."

He put his head out again cautiously, and then made the rest of his escape hastily, much embarrassed. Here he is, covered in leaves, and someone can see him; ah but to see the graceful Dalish, in his natural state! See him try to brush it off, a catlike dignity. He meant to do that. Definitely.

"Merril, really? You divebomb every elf who walks out the gates, then?"

[chainlightning]

In retrospect, she probably should have expected that.

Ghostface looks extremely pleased about having chased someone into a bush with his mere presence; he puffs his chest out, feathers rustling, and keeps his wings proudly spread. Yes, look at him, the magnificent hunter!

"No," starts Merrill, before realizing that the raised wings are muffling her a bit and making it rather hard to see. She pats Ghostface near the wing joint, and while he ruffles his feathers, the griffon complies after a moment and folds them.

Oh. Sorrel looks a bit- green.

"Ghostface was a bit- um, eager."

[writteninblood]

Sorrel opens his mouth to say something unpleasant. Then he stops, noticing a sprig of bush flopping, stuck by its spikey prickers to his hair, and takes the time to brush it off. Dignity, always dignity.

"Right, well. Well," He stops, having completely forgotten what he meant to say and now lost steam as well, "Well..."

And here they are, two elves and a bird. Sorrel is suddenly very aware of his hands, and the placement of his feet, and the fact that the last time they spoke, Merril had neatly done an end-run around him and— had he complimented her? He was sure it was, in their shared state of disgrace, nearly an insult. God, what do you do with your hands? He's gone his whole life having hands, but now they just exist there, on the ends of his arms, like floppy graceless masses, always in the way.

"...Its name is Ghostface?"

[chainlightning]

"It is!"

Cheerful, ever-cheerful, but there are few things Merrill loves more than talking about the griffons. Ghostface trills happily in response to his name, making Merrill giggle. He gets another pet and then she swings herself off, landing on the ground with bare feet and bent knees.

"We didn't name them, that was up to the rookery master, but yes. I was there when we got them out of Weisshaupt, and Ghostface and I took to each other."

She rubs her knuckles along his neck, careful not to expose her fingers.

"You can pet him, if you like; just be careful. He thinks fingers are sausages sometimes."

[writteninblood]

Sorrel, who had been halfway to reaching out towards the animal, pulls his hand back hurriedly. He's not afraid of horses, or nugs, and certainly not Halla, but...

...He'll call it respect, if he can, not cowardice, though the latter be more honest. There's a lot about Ghostface, and Merril herself, that inspires both reactions, if he's honest. Maybe that's not a bad thing.

"I'm going hunting today," He says instead, to cover for embarrassment, despite the blush, "Though I don't expect to get much more than a rabbit, with the weather. It's mostly just an excuse to feel like..."

Not like anything: unlike something. Unlike Kirkwall. Unkirkwally, that's how he wants to feel.

[chainlightning]

The pull of Sorrel's hand inspires Ghostface to chirp, head turning to watch him curiously. Respect or cowardice, Ghostface is interested now.

"It's good to get out of the city," Merrill agrees, whether she knows it or not. Hunting is a good reason, better than 'just because'; no one can argue that you need food, while they can argue against recreation. Morale was important, but wasting time wasn't.

[writteninblood]

Sorrel is quiet, mostly watching Ghostface to ward off any sudden, terrifying advances of a sharp, possibly angry beak. Is that an angry chirp or a happy chirp? Maybe it's not a chirp, maybe that's what it sounds like when a Griffin is evaluating you as a meal. Maybe he's overthinking this.

"You've lived here a long time," He says, eventually, "In Kirkwall. Don't you ever..."

He stops again, struggles. What had Nari said?

"Doesn't it feel like you're losing yourself, sometimes? Forgetting?"

[chainlightning]

For a moment, Merrill visits herself with Ghostface's tack, fiddling with the straps and stroking his feathers. The question hits close to home, and she has to think about it.

"Yes," she says at last, turning back to Sorrel. "And no. It's... I am not the Merrill who left my clan. I'm different. Whether that's good or bad... I think that depends on who you ask."

She pauses again and then, quieter: "I'm happier, though."

[writteninblood]

Happier. He regards this notion with at first some measure of doubt; Sorrel thinks he's earned that much, at least. But as he goes on, as the thought sits, toadlike, in the center of his mind, Sorrel wonders.

It's silly, of course; is he happier in Kirkwall? Not....generally. The city pressed in on him like a bare hand on a raw burn, sometimes. Most times. There were days when he felt the loss of the clan like a missing limb, sorrow rising in him like a miasma, and no need to breathe the fumes coming up from darktown to compare.

Still, would he go back, given the choice?

No. He didn't know if he would ever be happier here, but what happiness there was, was so sharp and vivid and real as to seem impossible. He could never abandon it, abandon them. Even if it meant putting up with Kirkwall.

Sorrel realizes, belatedly, that he hadn't said anything for quite some time, and blushed hard in the sudden rush of embarrassment. He could feel the heat in his ears, and the sure knowledge of how red he was did not help the situation at all. Well, that's just fine now isn't it, Sorrelean Ashara? You can't speak to a girl without embarrassing yourself, can you?

No, of course not.

"Sorry," He blurts, eventually mastering himself at least that much, "That was... I shouldn't have asked. I. That. Was rude?"

Was it? He has no idea. But it seems right to say so.

[faithlikeaseed]

Northerner that he is and still not quite used to snow, Myr had--perhaps--over-bundled for the day's expedition. He'd at least the sense (and experience, from muddling through the brush beyond the city walls to maintain his beehives) to forego his own robes in favor of trousers and a padded jacket--and entirely too much scarf, which he's in the process of disentangling himself from now that he's gotten too warm for it between the sun and exertion. "Uhm," is his intelligent reply, most of his attention taken up with not tripping or strangling himself.

"It's--Maker's eyes, how did I even do this?--aha!" The knot that had gotten worked into the whole thing comes loose, and Myr pulls the whole affair off and begins folding it with a certain triumphal air. "It's lovely, now that I'm not quite so cold."

He meets Sorrel's grin with one of his own, just a little sheepish around the edges. "Though I might've overdressed." Now folded into a tidy square, the scarf joins a hat and gloves likewise shed in Myr's pack.

[writteninblood]

"...Do you think so," Sorrel replies, having come to a stop while Myr sorts himself out. It's an open question whether they'll actually catch anything, at this rate, "There are some who'd argue being a bit uncomfortable is part of the point, you know."

Some here being code for Sorrel, but he doesn't press the point home, only rolls his eyes indulgently. It's too bright and clear to argue, and Myr did come out with him, city-elf bundles and an overlarge pack, and everything. It counted for something.

"Look," He pointed out the ground ahead of them, narrow as it was, "You know what this is? It's a deer-path. Roads in the forest, made only by animals."

[faithlikeaseed]

"Even so, and while respecting their opinions, I prefer to feel my fingers." He wiggles them in demonstration, grinning to soften the retort.

The foolishness is packed away easily as the scarf in the next instant as Sorrel indicates the track. "Huh." They're certainly nearly as big as people, so it would stand to reason they'd need paths too--Myr'd just never thought so much about those tracks through the underbrush. "How do they decide where to start them?"

He crunches up alongside Sorrel in the snow as he asks, ducking his head a little for a deer's-eye view of it.

[writteninblood]

"What, like they're planning it? They're deer," For Myr's sake, Sorrel casts his gaze up at the sky, as if to ask Myr's supposed Maker why he made this one when he could have made anything at all with the same time. Are you serious here, city-boy? "They're born out here and they walk the same ways because they all want to live. Only so many places to eat and find one another, in the world."

Honestly. But, then Sorrel has a thought.

"Now think, deer all going to same places, eating up the greens. Then they have to graze elsewhere. These trails are used by wolves, too, so there's always pressure to change. The Forest shifts, like the Beyond," He said thoughtfully, slipping without thought into the Dalish colloquialism. It was always The Fade in Kirkwall, as if it were only a pale imitation. Sorrel shrugs and leads Myr onward, down the narrow stream of the Deer-trail, "The veil only divides us from what's Beyond, it doesn't make us so different that we wouldn't recognize one another. They share a lot of the same reasons as the deer-trails. Can you walk any quieter?"

[faithlikeaseed]

"'Decide' wasn't the right word, perhaps--" There's a hint of not-quite-impatience around Myr's tone, though he keeps the you know what I meant to himself, because: No, he really wasn't all that clear. But Sorrel does go on to answer the question he hadn't formulated and that's good enough for him.

Or, well, almost. He makes a deliberate effort to step a little more carefully--slowing down, of course, as he does--while he chews on the other man's response. "All right--but when they do come to a place where they've not ever been before, what makes them go one place and not another? Simply--" There's a branch in the way--there's a branch in the way, he's so distracted trying to pull the idea out into reality he nearly runs face-first into it, ducking at the last moment with a knight-enchanter's reflexes. "--flowing along the path with the least resistance? Carving it out like water?"

[writteninblood]

"I don't know why you're asking me anything, when you won't listen to the answer. They're deer," He says it, not completely without impatience, but in an air of amusement rather than disdain, "They don't go around like Shemlen, building roads because they might need them later. They go where they're going because they actually need something; food, or sex, or water, or space to live, or not to be eaten. They shape the world because they're part of the shape."

Don't exasperate your tone at him, circle-mage. It's not his fault you need every answer spelled out to you, as if magic existed in books only and not in every living thing around you. And you only recently able to read them anyways!

"Water only wants to go down. Deer want lots of things, sometimes all at once. People are even more complicated. Don't get me started on Halla and—" Sorrel stopped. The trees were opening out ahead of them, the sun shining cold down onto a browned and scrubby clearing, close-cropped, surrounded by brambles. There was a gap ahead, formed by the habitual passage of larger creatures, and continued on the opposite side, but crouched and nibbling in the shadow of the shrubbery were a small knot of rabbits. Sorrel motioned to Myr for silence and unslung his bow, crouching on silent feet to go a bit nearer, watching.

They were soft little things, round and snub-earred, even this far north, possibly descended from a Ferelden breed brought north during the blight. Their fur was patchy and grey, as if there had been some aborted attempt to turn white with the winter, but if they had wanted to finish the transformation, it had never obliged them. There were three, and every now and then, one would sit up a little and listen, looking in all directions, and then go back to tearing at the thin winter grass. Their warren must have been nearby.

"Well?" Sorrel whispered, when he was quite sure they were going to have the time to sit there, and not immediately scare them off, "Go on. Feed the clan."

It wasn't a very good joke. But then, it wasn't meant to make Myr laugh, after all.

cw: bad things happening to animals 8[

[faithlikeaseed]

This is one of those things, Myr decides, that is getting lost in translation and without the will on both sides of the conversation to work it out--well.

Another benefit of having eyes again is he can roll them--or rather, more charitably, lift them to the heavens in silent entreaty of the Maker. It means he nearly--nearly, but doesn't--miss Sorrel's gesture for silence, and misses entirely why it's made and why his companion's unslinging the bow for a long second or two. Why are they--

Ah. Oh. Myr goes still on sighting the rabbits, aware without consciously being so that now they're actually hunting instead of just taking a lovely walk in the woods. He takes his cue from Sorrel and stands watching them at silflay, expecting any second the other man's going to take aim at one of them and kill it.

Imagine his surprise when that's not what happens; his look of incredulity is particularly choice, as is the abbreviated gesture something along the lines of Do I look like I'm carrying a bow? --Because he isn't, having left the practice bow he'd been learning with back in the Gallows. Though knowing as much as he does of Sorrel now, he suspects that's half the point of the comment.

All right. All right, he's got to kill a rabbit. He's a mage, he's resourceful, he's--probably going to get laughed at if he incinerates them all with flashfire or has whatever insects that'll rouse in this cold sting the poor bunnies to death. He doesn't have a bow. Sorrel's definitely not going to loan him a bow.

He does have decades-old memories of the alienage and older boys chucking rocks at the birds stealing fruit from his father's carefully tended garden--and sometimes they'd hit one, and sometimes that meant a little meat at dinner. Feed the clan.

Keeping his eyes on the rabbits, Myr hunkers down to feel through the patchy snow and half-rotted leaves. It doesn't take too long to find a suitable stone, one that fits his hand comfortably, and he stands back up straight quietly as he can. Studies the rabbits the same way he would if he were gauging the range for a spell--cheating, a little, by feeling out that distance through the Fade--before hefting the rock and waiting.

Waiting.

One of the rabbits pauses in eating and sits up to clean its face with both paws. It doesn't see the rock coming; the blow catches it in the jaw and neck, sending it head-over-heels with a horrid shriek. An explosion of frantic action as the other two leap for the bushes and the wounded rabbit struggles to right itself and flee, bleeding from a lopsided face and drunken-staggering--and Myr swears beneath his breath, launching himself after it.

He'd meant to hit it in the skull--either a clean kill or a stunned bunny--and instead now he's got to chase it into the brush and catch it up and put it out of its misery--

[writteninblood]

He wasn't expecting much. If anything, he was expecting a complaint, or at least a demand for the bow, which Sorrel had had every intention of sharing, if it had been asked-for. If he had thought for a minute, he'd have said that Myr was likely to resort more to magic than anything else.

It's not cheating, after all, if it gets the job done. The trick was to get the job done without destroying— and then Myr throws the rock.

Sorrel stands as Myr goes crashing through the brush, and the rabbits scatter in all directions. He watches for a moment, then sighs, and follows, re-stowing his bow. The panicked, flopping rabbit, flops away as best it can, in a random, terrible fashion that belies the state of what remains of its brains; Sorrel considers helping it, or Myr, and decides against it. It's awful, but it's a lesson, and an important one that doesn't bear forgetting.

Life is ugly, and unclean. Death is never easy, and you owe it to the world to gain the skill to make it at least easier on all the things that have to die, so that you can continue living. The rabbit joins that number, under Myr's hands, and Sorrel sighs again.

"Well, you killed it," He's not without some grudging respect, despite the mess of it all. Whatever else he is, Myrobalan Shivana is not a scrub or a coward, and that counts for a great deal, "You definitely did kill it."

[faithlikeaseed]

"I'd meant to hit it in the head," Myr says, rueful and regretful both, once it's all over and he's cut the rabbit's throat to end its suffering. "I s'pose I sort of did." It's a little hard to look the poor maimed thing in the face to examine exactly what he'd done to it, but he does it anyway, a twitch at the corner of one eye belying his discomfort with what he's done.

He's killed before, men and animals both, but usually with more...grace. Than this. He works the rabbit's shattered jaw a little with one finger before wincing.

"Would've gone cleaner with magic. --We've got to dress it now, right?"

Because when in discomfort or doubt it's better to keep his momentum going and just. Fix the situation on the move.

[writteninblood]

"Well, why didn't you use magic, then?" Sorrel asks with justified bafflement. Mythal's dubious fucking mercy, Myr! "No, you've got to dress it. I've got to get a fire going. Did you want to use that knife for it?"

Sorrel eyes the knife in Myr's hand dubiously, as if uncertain he should be allowed to keep it. But then, that might just be for the joke of it, because he says nothing more, only turns and gestures back towards the clearing.

"I'll set the field-camp, while you work. Unless you need a minder for this?"

[nadasharillen]

Air and quiet had sounded perfect. Nari had almost forgotten, in the constant rhythm of daily work and sheltering from the horrifying winter sleet, that there was an outside Kirkwall. She looks bright and lively out here, and is accoutered much as Sorrel is although the bow she carries is largely perfunctory and she's wearing boots.

Not all that worried about scaring away game—it's largely already away—she whistles thoughtlessly as they walk, some mix of calling back to the few birds flitting about the stark landscape and snatches of songs blending into each other one after the next. She stretches her arms above her head with a contented noise when the sun peeks out and laughs through her nose.

"I think I forgot I was alive."

[writteninblood]

"Remember Halla, Nari. Remember Aravels? Remember the way they used to sing when it was tanning day, down by the water? I'm a pretty useless trade-in for a proper Keeper, but even I can't let you forget you're still Dalish, under all this Inquisition crap," He gestures at the shadow of the walls still visible in peeks and glimpses beyond the trees behind them, himself full of smiles in the sharp, cold sunlight, "You know, before I came to Kirkwall, I thought all alienage elves were stupid, or crazy."

Sorrel says it conversationally, because he knows Nari will take it in the spirit it was meant. Irreverence was the order of the day, and if Sorrel was any kind of Keeper, even only an excuse for one, he was nothing at all like his mother.

"...And now I know the flat-ears aren't stupid at all— just crazy. You live inside walls all your life, and all those Shems pushing at you and mucking with the Fade until your own brain starts to boil out of self-defense."

[nadasharillen]

She screws up her face as if she's making immense effort to think.

"Halla... Aravels..." She shrugs with a grin: nope, got nothin', and then turns to walk backwards for a bit as surely as she had been the right way around.

"You're probably right. After all, I got used to it and we've only been in among shem'len for..." Nari looks up for a moment, counting, and then stops moving to whistle lowly. "Three and a half years."

[writteninblood]

"Well, thank you for that, now I feel dirty," Sorrel replies, primly, and holds back a loose runner of creeping fig for her to pass, not that she needs it, "Three and a half years and here we stand. I feel less vhen, just thinking about it."

Three and a half years... Had it been that long, really? It seemed to short a time, for all that had happened, too small a number for the lifetime that stood between them and the selves of that past. Sorrel could feel his shoulders trying to duck forward at the memory of who he'd been. Sina's ghost stood like fog around them, and he shivered and let the vines fall.

"Rabbit, this time of year? It's been a long time since I actually shot something that wasn't made of straw, so... don't laugh at me, when I miss."

[nadasharillen]

"Me? Laugh at a clanmate for missing?" Nari snorts with amusement. She feels it there, in the woods. The missing space. Especially with Sorrel. But the sun is bright, and Sina would have been enjoying the day, and she'll enjoy the day.

"I'm the worst shot of Dahlasanor. The only reason they kept me as a hunter is because there were only three people in the entire clan, and I track well enough to make up for it." It's not necessary to say that she still ranks well enough among the Inquisition's archers, but of the Dalish? Nooo.