faderift | (no subject)

WHO: Gavin and OPEN
WHAT: Gavin getting his bearings of Skyhold as the Inquisition reels from its loss.
WHEN: Beginning of game timeline, aka, nowish?
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: He's a derp, don't say I didn't warn you. Also, as I mentioned in his app, he's spent a long time wandering Thedas - so if you'd like to have it so they've already met previous to the conclave, and want to hash out some back history, let me know.

He hadn't expected to feel such a weight of helpless loss. After all, he hadn't even met her, despite being in Haven at the time. Despite somehow surviving the mess than ensued. He'd seen her, sure, but she was something high above him and they never actually crossed paths. Which was why, when her death hit him so hard, he was surprised.

It wasn't even the hopelessness that the situation was prone to give birth to. It was honestly for her - for the individual, rather than the Mark on her hand. But how could you mourn a person you never really knew?

Mostly, it turned out, by throwing himself into absolutely anything else. (At least this sort of running from his problems was productive. Mostly.) Luckily, Skyhold was hardly without things to do. The place was a shambles - an absolute mess - so he mostly tried to tag onto whatever work group was currently working. He sort of forgot to sleep, but that wasn't strange in of itself. Nor was the fact that he wasn't actually making himself very useful. He kept getting distracted. It wasn't his fault that everything in this place was fascinating. And fascinating things were much, much better than grief.

Which was why, anyone who happened to be in Skyhold, could find him in some very peculiar places. He'd managed to nearly plummet to his death from the rookery, get tangled in cobwebs in the hidden library in the basement, climb through the hole in Cullen's roof to get distracted by a bird instead of trying to fix it, and even had spent thirty minutes trying to get to know one of the horses. Also he kept not watching where he was going - physically running into people, or backing up into them, letting out a hasty apology and a lopsided, shameful grin.

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Indeed, all of this was new and exciting for her; almost overwhelming, really. It was good that Gavin was here to help so she could stay focused instead of running wild, wanting to see everything at once.

"I like our secrets," she said, leaving the book search behind to come over to him. "Like the comb you gave me. I brought it, you know. And the stories you told me that our Keeper never knew about."

He grinned, reaching out to ruffle her hair as he stepped over.

"Good to know my thoughtfulness isn't going to waste," he teased, and then the grin settled into a warm smile.

"You're going to have secret stories of your own, soon enough, Ellana."

Ellana scrunched up her nose and blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes, but for the moment, she left the rest alone in its ruffled state.

"That's true. I'm not going to tell the rest of the clan even half of what I learn here. I'll tell you, though, if you ever wish to hear it. You know that... that I feel I can tell you anything about my un-Dalish interests, don't you?"

He grinned down at her.

"I would hope so," He replied. "You know me, I like to hear about everything." He'd remember it, too. His memory for oral history was like nothing else - one of the reasons he'd been apprenticed to the Storyteller.

At least until he'd started to throw random dragons into the stories.

"But you know, Ellana, I think it would only help the clan if we talked more openly about that kind of stuff. Keeping it all secret makes it seem so..." He trailed off thoughtfully. "Shameful, I guess. I don't see why we can't be ourselves and part of the world, but then, I also don't understand how I earn quite so many knocks on the head from the keeper."

His words leave her looking thoughtful, and she takes a moment while thinking to smooth down her hair before taking his hand in hers.

"You're right. I've always wanted the clan to grow, to be more than we are. I've wanted us to know our past, but not let it be all that we hold onto, otherwise we'd have no future. But I've always been too afraid of being hated, or being called a race traitor. Things are different here. The whole world's opened up to me for the first time." She squeezes his hand and smiles.

"I can't hide how much I want to know about others and their lives, and I shouldn't have to. If the others don't like it, then that's on them."

He smiled down at her, fond and warm. "There you go," he said. He felt a touch guilty - the 'race traitor' label would be one she would not really be able to avoid. "I have a feeling they'll come around. With Pel and Beleth here..." He trailed of in a laugh.

"Well, if we can change Beleth's mind, we can change anyone's."

Her face scrunched up a little in distaste. "I'm not planning on holding her hand through it. She can come to see the good people of the world on her own, if she allows herself." If she ever looks up long enough to see.

That made him laugh - her expression, more than her words - and he offered her a half smile and a shrug. Mostly agreement. But he never could manage to keep his mouth shut and let people come to their own conclusions.

"Well, come on. Plenty more of the castle to see, and hopefully no more contraband items we'll have to hide from the others," he added with a wink.

There'd be enough of those later.