closed | road trip

[dissolving]

WHO: Cedric & Gwen & a skull sippy cup
WHAT: Road trip!
WHEN: Vaguely after Satinalia
WHERE: Cumberland
NOTES: I'll edit as appropriate.

The Abbey's an ugly scene.

Thick walls, massed bureaucracy; some clerk dredged up to speak with her in quiet, clipped Orlesian. They cannot make promises for the Spire, but he will pass whatever papers she has brought along if she will just wait here, in the hall,

And no further. Young, robed things watch her sidelong. Older ones watch the doors, shaggy with humped muscle; eyes faded, skin worn hard for sixty. The hours pass. Some shift exchanges, a new man led out by the crook-curved arm. Armored, and not armed. Mouth turned down in dull, unhappy line.

An ugly scene. That was before the door slammed. Glass shatters, a breathless shout: "Carsus — !"

Amazing, the ground he can cover in a skirt. Commotion somewhere behind. The guard starts. Their eyes meet,

He looks like he means to say something. And then they're both out the doors.

Comments

[dissolving]

They're both spared skepticism of Korcari witches by the tap of needle over nerve, and a mumbled curse for someone's crypt –

He resets.

"'S beautiful," Means that much. She came to the right country for it, not so different from some of the symbols that etch these streets. The pause is slight, but it's there. Maybe it's only for invoking another name, so hot on the heels of others. Maybe it's because: "Astrid sort of reckons them the same. Guess that's not it, exactly. But the sky, y'know. Says 's where they send their folk."

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle softens in a different way, then—

“To the lady of the skies,” she agrees. “Always think of her when I see crows.” The Avvar’s lady, and not Astrid, though it’s easy enough these days to get to one from the other. A clear line towards: oh, I wonder what Astrid’s up to, a question she can more easily answer than what Aura might be, or what Asher would.

She looks down at her feet, mostly finished.

“I always remember my mother at the healer’s tents outside Skyhold,” she says, after a moment, “shaving Asher’s beard for him, so he wouldn’t go to the lady looking a fright. It was still a secret, you know? He took it with him to her for safekeeping. Much,”

injecting deliberate humour, a hint of irony,

“good that that did.”

It doesn’t really sound like she regrets the way it’s gone.