faderift | open | with the sound of my heart

She's spent a lot of time wondering, over the years. Running various what if scenarios through her mind and being subjected to the cruel insinuations of others. Being abandoned by choice. Being the reason Enallas is dead. Giving up on searching for them too soon, not doing enough to save or find any of them, and so on, and so forth.

None of it ever changed the simple fact that they're gone.

"No. I figured... if Enallas survived, he would've gone back to the camp, or known to go to Kirkwall if necessary, since that's where a lot of my family traded for things. But I never heard talk of anyone like him around. Maybe he got picked up by sailors, or pirates, or fishermen, I dunno. But... Last month I went back to where the camp was and said the rites for everyone, planted trees and charms for each. The aravel was still there, and the camp looked like it hadn't been touched. Not even by looters, because my nan's staff was still there."

This, at least, is a wound old enough that she doesn't feel too fragile to talk about.

"I've had to come to terms with never knowing for certain. What happened, what might've been. I'll never know what vallaslin I might've earned, what my role would've been in the clan, what more I might've learned about my heritage. Just like I'll never know what it's like to grow up in an Alienage."

He listens silently, suddenly grateful that he'd gotten the small primer from Byerly that he had. That he'd never stumbled blindly into any of these subjects, maybe pricked some kind of fresh pain. That he'd never asked, so, why don't you have one of those forehead-things?

"I think I can see," he finally says instead, "Why you and Mhavos might be such good friends."

He'd gotten this talk, the one about city elves, and Dalish elves, and the elves that belong to neither, and remembers it well.

Athessa lets out a soft little ha, not quite a laugh but close enough. Just like her face shifts into not quite a smile, but something fond all the same.

"Yeah, I guess we have complementary experiences with being outsiders. I wish I'd met him sooner."

"Did you have — anyone? In Kirkwall?"

He's almost afraid to ask it, what if she says no? But that would be impossible, a vivacious and caring woman like her, wouldn't it?

"No," she answers on the exhale of a deep breath. "Not really, anyway. When I got nabbed by the guards, when I got this—" The scar she showed him on the beach, a memory of a guard dog nearly taking her arm off. "—the guards tried to dump me off at the Alienage, tried to find someone to hold responsible. The hahren — the elder — told them straight away, she's not one of ours. Not that I blame her; they would've made every elf in the Alienage suffer for me, if they'd taken me in."

And then Devigny happened, and Ciara. Does she tell him about that? Tell him about the first person she loved who then broke her heart and made her believe she was unlovable? Athessa shifts, relieving the pressure on her hip slightly and adjusting the lay of her arms.

"You don't...really want to hear about this, do you? I don't mind you knowing it all but I just...those years aren't happy ones." Surely he'd rather hear about the time she spent as a dancer with a traveling show in Rivain, or about literally anything else.

Should he hold out hope for some later acquaintance that became friend, or shelter? Or would Athessa have mentioned any such person in this answer? He's still wrestling with this when she speaks again, and he shifts as well. His is to sit a little higher in the tub, to tilt a glance down at her — the top of her head, the curve of cheek, whatever he can see.

"I do," he says, which is true regardless of how grim the tale is, "But I don't ... that is, this isn't a demand. I don't want anything you're not willing to give me."

She looks up at him, gauging his expression. He knows the vaguest of versions she could have offered, that she hasn't always been able to defend herself, but...knowing the details is different. Her concern isn't that he'll decide, suddenly, that she is too broken to be around, but that his only option will be to pity her.

"Alright," she says. "But — you know me here and now, okay? So you shouldn't...you shouldn't pity me. Or worry for me. I've had to survive a lot of unpleasantness to get here but I'm not...I'm not fragile."

He knows first-hand how quick she is to break a man's nose. He saw her kill Medrod.

He studies her face as she looks up at him, and wonders what she searches for. Maybe he can guess. Maybe it's the same thing that has him staring at walls and ceilings during his own confessions, too afraid of seeing the assumption that he's after some kind of sympathy, or needs to be handled more carefully.

"I couldn't think of you as fragile if I tried," he says, quite honestly. "And I won't do either. I promise it."

Before she goes on she leans up to kiss him, closing her eyes briefly. Her fingers brush his jaw. Water drips from her fingers in little rivulets down his neck. This feels more familiar than before, less like holding each other together and more like just...holding each other.

Sinking back down, she rests her head against him and sighs.

"I didn't really have anyone in Kirkwall for two years. Nobody closer than an acquaintance. Which is probably why I ended up getting grabbed. They knew nobody'd come looking for me.

"There was a noble called Devigny, used to live on an estate in Hightown. He was well known for throwing big, expensive parties where everyone'd pretend to be Orlesian, that kind of bullshit. He would pay off the city guards that patrolled around his place so none of them would get in trouble for causing too much noise or anything, and he'd pay them to look the other way when he wanted his footman to kidnap girls off the street for him.

"When he was done with them, the girls would get dumped off at a brothel he owned. No guild oversight keeping tabs on anything, so you can imagine...it wasn't a good place to be."

He welcomes the kiss, his hand slipping briefly to hold the back of her neck until they part again. He very much hopes it provided whatever she needed, as his hand drops to her back.

The words darken his face, pulling his brows together, but he doesn't say anything. It's not pity, only regret. Regret that the evils of the world never really change, regardless of the world in question. His hand is stroking again, rubbing small circles into her back.

"How long did you spend there?"

"A year, I think. Maybe more," she shakes her head slightly. "Sometimes the days, weeks would bleed into one another. But one of the girls that'd been there for a while before me, Ciara...she helped me. Stopped me from doing anything stupid, made it so I could...be touched without absolutely losing my mind."

Except Ciara wasn't helping Athessa. She was just looking out for herself, wasn't she? Athessa sighs again.

"She was the first person who seemed to care about me, to look at me and see someone worth...worth anything. She looked out for me and I fought for her and I...I loved her. But in the end, when I couldn't stand to be there anymore, she...

"I had scrounged together what I could, stolen enough to afford passage on a ship, if I could just get on one. I asked—begged her to come with me, to get out of Kirkwall and go somewhere else to just live and be happy. She told me she wouldn't go with me, and that everything we had was a lie. That she couldn't love me."

More ripples scatter over the surface of the water as Athessa shrugs, and winces at the movement. Ah well. Testament to the soothing quality of the bath.

"I, with utmost dignity, climbed out the window, crept down to the docks, and hopped on a ship to Rivain come morning."

"I'm glad you got out," he says quietly. "It must have taken a lot to go alone."

This part in particular has brought a twinge to his heart — thinking you might be able to trust someone, or even just count on someone, that's a familiar story. He shifts his good arm, figuring it's about time to stir in a little more warmth as the water around them cools.

"And in Rivain? What did you find?"

Some shade of a smile curls Athessa's lips and she looks to the fire again.

"I found a traveling show outside Afsaana, a little port town where the air is thick with spices. It's warm and dry in Rivain, so the spices get picked up by the breeze and they just kinda... wash over you.

"I joined the traveling show as a dancer."

Oh, there's an unexpectedly sunny turn. Vanadi blinks, heartened by that as much as pleased by the information.

"You're a dancer?" he asks, sounding pleasantly surprised. "You must teach me a few dances, it's endlessly irritating not to know any of them around here."

Well, he does know at least one, the boring anyone-can-do-it party kind. That's not the sort he means.

A little belatedly, he adds, "You know, when everyone is once again all in one piece."

She chuckles.

"When I don't need to wear a sling, at least. But I can show you a few things."

Though he might not have the flexibility for the kind of dancing she did. Pausing in her life story, she looks over her shoulder at the hand that's been heating the water, and she gestures for it to hold with her good hand.

"Does this kind of spell take the same toll on you as the shadow magic?"

He'll take learning a few things. He'll take anything, as he discovers in himself a nostalgia for dancing he hadn't realized he had. Huh.

Her question brings him back, and he flicks a few drops of water off the hand in question before dropping it into hers, to thread their fingers. Shadow magic is a new term to him, but he has to admit it fits.

"Hardly," he says, with a shrug of the opposite shoulder. "This is a parlor trick at best."

He becomes a shadow, what else could it possibly be called? But it's a relief to hear, in any case. He already had to deal with the buckets of water, she doesn't want him using up his soul for her.

"Good," she says, running her thumb over his knuckles.

He watches their fingers for a few seconds, thinking — thinking how strange, that he can live through the events of the other day, and listen to the unavoidably distressing stories Athessa has to tell, and still be happy just to be here with her. It might be a bit pathetic and needy, but he supposes he will have to live with that.

He captures her fingers in his for a moment, the better to bring both hands high and brush a kiss against the back of her palm.

"And so?" he prompts. "How long did you dance? What sights did you see during the traveling?"

"Oh, I danced for about five years, I think," she continues, having gotten lost in thought about the same moment he did. Thinking about how she spent almost as long in Rivain as she did with her clan, about how few people she truly got to know in that time, about what Vanadi once said about not having anyone he could trust.

"We mostly stuck to the northern parts of Rivain, toward the western border with Antiva, but it's beautiful there. In Afsaana and Ayesleigh there are amazing views of Rialto Bay and the ships making port. It's a popular subject for artists to paint for good reason. And most of the beaches there are sandy, not rocky like we have here. But on the northern coast there are some pretty spectacular cliffs, too.

"When I stopped dancing, it was to join a small group of mercenaries in Kont-aar."

He closes his eyes, the better to try and visualize the sights of this world. He'd done a fair amount of travel in the last (though not all of it was voluntary, or scenic), and while he can't even imagine picking up to do the same here anytime soon ... the idea does lodge itself onto his eventual-to-do list.

His answer is a murmur, relaxed: "Is that where you learned to fight? Or had you begun to pick it up sooner?"

"I'd been picking up a few things from a the others in the troupe, mostly stage choreography, but all you need is a slight adjustment from that to make it real. I also learned a few tricks from people I'd take to bed with me."

Athessa closes her eyes as well, managing with enough focus to keep unpleasantness at bay. She conjures instead:

"There was a fighter, Mastani, who taught me a lot of the leg-holds I use now. The last one she taught me involved wrapping my legs around her neck."

So ya know. Her life was going alright.

He makes a low, impressed noise at the thought of it. "Well, no wonder you've legs like you do," he says, and drops a hand through the water to give one of said thighs a fond pat. A second later he realizes he's dropped the wrong hand, the one attached to a bandaged arm. The bandages are quite thoroughly soaked.

"Oh. Shit." He sighs at himself and returns the arm, a little uselessly, to its drape along the edge.

Athessa tsks at him, shaking her head. "I told ya."

Luckily she has clean bandages and healing salve in her room; she can dress it for him.

Somewhat along those lines, she sits upright to reach with her left arm for the soap. They have to actually wash sometime.

"You did," he says dutifully, "And I'll never doubt you again."

He sits up a few beats after Athessa, and requests the soap with an open palm out expectantly. Since he is, apparently, back to the use of two arms again, with one of them pointless to try and keep out of the water anymore, and two arms do beat one.

It's true that two arms beat one in this odd version of rock paper scissors called one arm, two arms, legs. So Athessa relinquishes the soap into his hand and pulls her hair off of her back and over one shoulder, baring her spine.

"Have you always slept better alone?"

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