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[dissolving]

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infirmary

[tadpoled]

[Tav is back in the infirmary after not resting much at all back in the Gallows. He's finding it harder and harder to sleep under lock and key. His guards follow him as he enters the infirmary and glances around to find both Cedric and Vanya.

Cedric first.

Tav's guards hang back as the elf approaches Cedric's bed with a soft smile.]

I'm Tav, not sure if you remember me. [He wouldn't blame him.] I'm here to check back in, see if you need any more of the-- [He wiggles his fingers and a hopefully familiar turquoise light dances between them.] magic touch, as it were.

[dissolving]

[ Ah.

Cedric peels the cloth from his eyes, squinting against the light. He sits upright, propped in a chair not far from Vanya’s cot. Meant to head out already, but something of the cool and dark sat so heavy on his brow, and -

Well, no one’s slept much, have they?

No, he doesn’t remember Tav. The past day is a lurch of hours. But he knows the name, the voice. ]

Barrow filled me in, [ Careful. He's watching the guards. Cedric's seen his share of mages too, but the Loyalists he knows own more freedom of movement. ] Reckon we all owe you our gratitude, Tav.

[ His expression gentles, but his palm presses out firm - no, no more magic, thank you. Bruises will fade, and the rough men in back remind his training: A spell is always an escalation.

He likes the four of them better settled. ]

[tadpoled]

It’s neither here nor there. I was glad to help.

[And yet he’s almost grateful to be turned down. He’d just about passed out healing Barrow, Cedric, and Vanya.]

I suppose you must be feeling better then? Anything I can get you?

action

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly saunters into the library a bit after noon (punctuality is not his strong suit). He looks dapper enough, and quite unconcerned by any of the previous drama, having extracted himself from his feelings a bit.

If Cedric is there as promised, he'll saunter over to his table. ]

[dissolving]

[ summer's come to kirkwall. it's hot, and if that beats cold by a country mile, cedric's still sweating through his shirtsleeves. you'd think all the stones they lost would've improved tower airflow.

he's fussing by the time byerly arrives, distraction peeling a soggy flop of hair to shape; a bad job to cover the ruins of his ear. inkpot and pages are arranged, first draft sketched in chalk slate (with paper so dear): thanking the countess for her kind words on dear jeanne-marie, whose loss penfinnel hasn't deigned to acknowledge —

a nod, he nudges it across the table. ]

They get your street cleared up?

[ last time he was down their lane, the neighbours were rubble. ]

[bouchonne]

Mm.

[ By pulls out tobacco and rolling papers, starts rolling himself a smoke. Obnoxiously, he does not seem to be sweating, but instead looks rather crisp. Just one of the annoying things about him. ]

We've come to the end of the grisly discoveries, hopefully.

[ There's a darkness that passes momentarily across his face. The houses beside theirs, on either side, had been crushed. They'd been occupied. ]

Funny, what passes for small talk nowadays.

Action, training grounds

[sprent]

(If somebody were to, say, be occupying the training grounds for whatever reason that afternoon they may notice Gela walking there at quite a pace with both hands on her hips, like she is going somewhere, or is on a quick and nervous mission.

She pauses near the fencing and squints at the back that's to her, calling out,) Cedric?

[dissolving]

[ He’s rarely in plate. It’s a pain for the work they do now, so often by air, with thin numbers and improvisational tactics. There aren’t men at his shoulders, sweeping a street; advancing on a spell. It’s him, him and a few others at a time, and he’s had to adapt —

But some days you just want to wear out. A shield arcs high and down, smashes into the splintered edge of a dummy’s shoulder. He’s drawing back for another blow when he hears her. Oh. Oh, ]

Gela, [ Breathless. Cedric turns, hooks his helmet off and aside. The shield drops. His brow crinkles. ] Hey. Y’alright?

[ She’s so seldom out here. ]

[sprent]

I — ('m fine, the response at the edge of her lips, an easy thing to say but now bit back. The formality of Cedric in his plate armor and shield, something she has not seen him wear in any battle, is a strange reassurance: they are both doing things they don't normally do, here, and it hasn't changed the way they greet each other.

Still, some habits are too hard to break so even though Gela does admit,) No, (then,) I don't know, (as if to soften it, she pushes on hard and purposeful, like striking out at a target.) You're — this is very impressive.

(The plate.)

Have you been out here a while?

crystal.

[elegiaque]

( a while after their earlier conversation, when gwenaëlle has had time to let the worst initial sting fade into dull, disappointed ache— )

What we talked about— don't mention it to Clarisse, ouais?

[dissolving]

[ a puff of breath, a little more amused than any of this mess warrants, because — ]

Almost told you th'same. Figured you knew her better.

[elegiaque]

( a similar sound echoes back to him, warm in spite of— well. )

I shouldn't have worried. Mm. I just don't want her to feel— oh, you know.

action-ish.

[aberratic]

[ someday, in the days following their encounter at the baths and ness' crystal address and all she's working on to become accustomed to thedas—someday in the aftermath of all that, cedric will return to his tent and find a small folded scrap of fabric pinned, along with a note, to the tent flap. the scrap of fabric, a match to the shift he so unceremoniously caught ness in that night if he looked closely at either, unfolds into a handkerchief. it may have been perfectly square when the fabric was cut, but the stitches around the edges aren't quite even, warping it somewhat, and the blue monogrammed c. c. in the lower left edge isn't the smoothest—these are the stitches of someone familiar with first principles of sewing and embroidery, but little practice in their finer applications. the note, by contrast, is written in a practiced, beautiful hand: ]

Mssr. Carsus,

I wanted to thank you for the kindness you showed me that night at the baths. It would have been all too easy for you to shower me with recriminations, to treat me with fear and distrust, and if you had it would have been deserved: It was irresponsible of me not to have said anything to anyone about my magic when I first became aware of it, I know that now and I knew that then. I was afraid and alone in a new world, and could not think of what else to do but hide, but that doesn't excuse my actions.

You did not treat me with the distrust I was due, though. You were kind, and you sat with me, and because of you I now begin to understand what I am capable of, and most importantly, how to keep the people around me safe from it. I cannot thank you enough for that. This token doesn't begin to approach the magnitude of that gift you gave me, but I offer it all the same, with my most sincere gratitude.

I hadn't met a templar before you, at least not one that I knew was a templar. If they're all like you, I'm glad they're here, just as I am glad you were there for me that night.

With deepest thanks,
Ennaris Tavane

[dissolving]

[ he turns the cloth overhand, examines the seams. stitches inexpert as his own mended elbows. there is a well of,

something, there, ill-named. easier to consider the sense of it: a dozen textures of memory, rough and soft and steady and thin. the picked gold wire of vestments. the thick stains of dye. the sweat-drenched pad between gauntlet, palm; gambeson, heart.

it's a few days before the letter is returned. his own doesn't flow so pretty, blocks of clear, efficient print: ]


Miss Tavane,

Thank you for the letter, and the kind words. Told you I was grateful for your trust, and I meant it; takes guts to face that.

Back when they taught us on spirits, it was like this: Spirits are one thing, simple. People are different – you can’t hold half a feeling. Can't be peaceful unless you've been angry, can't be sad unless you've seen joy. So it follows, right, that you can't be brave unless you've been scared.

You've been plenty brave.

Had an old lieutenant kept a marble, the kind kids play for. Used to roll it in her hand before battle. After. We were on a hill one day, when I caught her holding it to sky, squinting through the glass. She let me try, and it sent everything bubbling strange; blue. Said it gave her a different perspective. New way to see.

[ the other half. wrapped within page: a small thing, irregular; some fraction of green bottle salvaged from rocky shore. the sea glass frosts, semi-translucent. smooth under thumb. ]

Reckon you’ve had no shortage of new. Maybe, some day, that'll look more like home.

— Cedric

HO HO HO

[altusimperius]

[in Cedric's pigeonhole is a bottle of pretty good whiskey. a note, attached via twine around the bottle's neck, reads:

from your Secret Satina, Benedict]

crystal;

[wearyallalone]

[Not too long after the announcement.]

I don't know if there's a plan, for pressing for the perpetrators who attacked Amsel. But if you need a sword, I'm happy to volunteer.

[It sure doesn't sound like checking how Cedric's doing, so it has that going for it.]

[dissolving]

Dunno either. Fucked 's been sitting this long.

[ there's always something, and only so much to work with. he knows. ]

Thanks. If they took a company of mages — [ that's mostly what riftwatch is. ] — Well. I'll stick in the letter, anyway. Divine's got eyes further South than us. Maybe someone gets bored enough t'read it.

[ he does not sound like he much expects that. tired and distracted since the necropolis, and that hasn't changed, but loose with his tongue on the crystals. angry, then.]

[wearyallalone]

You never know.

[A pause.]

If it is someone going rogue, you're right that they can't walk it back directly. But we may see a countermove of some sort.

[And if it does come all the way from the top, as they both suspect, they... won't see that. Either way, a bit more information.]

crystal; timey-wimey backdating

[aberratic]

Cedric, could I bother you for a moment? I have a question about Nevarra.

[dissolving]

'S not a bother.

[ good excuse to stop checking, and rechecking, and triple-checking, and triple-rechecking their list of contacts. already drawn a line through rina mitrea. ]

What's on?

[aberratic]

It's nothing serious, I simply...

[ it is occurring to her only now that this sounds... really weird, probably. oh no. ]

Messere Orlov has been teaching me Nevarran, and I wanted to do something kind for him in return, but he refuses to ask me for anything. I've decided to cook for him, in want of anything better to do, and I just wondered what he might like, what he might miss from home.

crystal; around the time connor arrived

[catathymic]

Ser Carsus, my name is Connor Guerrin. Can I beg your ear for a moment? In person, if it's not too much trouble.

[dissolving]

'Course,

[ just a bit too keen: the way folks get when you've caught them dozing. it's noon, and the desk's been embossing cedric's cheek nearly an hour. but a southern stranger knows his name, has used his title, and so — ]

Lend you the good one. Can I ask what 's about?

[ a glance down finds the shirt he's picked today. blue, and unpatched; and definitely not chantry-spun. shit. ]

pls let me here

[sumptus]

That night, light opens to swallow the boy who will be Caius in turn, and he wakes with a frown. Brows furrow, not confused — confusion is practically an admission of defeat, and one frustratingly disingenuous response is hardly reason for that, but an unnamed, sourceless anger sticks in his jaw all the same.

It's months before the experiment repeats. His nights are otherwise occupied. The walk to Kirkwall is long — the walk from his body, longer, and if practicality were all that ruled him maybe this wouldn't be worth the risk, but alone on the barren highlands of the Free Marches for weeks on end with nothing but goats and spirits for company, Caius keeps prodding at the idea like tongue at rotten tooth, and one night he goes back. A week later, again. It's sporadic, infrequent. It gets easier every time.

The face is never his again. Disguise is a skill he's still building — some nights the eyes are still his, the shapes of the fingers, a sliver of that young human boy's features reflected on the surface of a pool, but it's always the approximation of someone else who happens into Cedric's dreams. An elderly elf, a Chantry sister, a young dwarven pickpocket, a troublesome mage. One asshole merc bears a potentially familiar smirk; another stubborn companion is a literal mule, even if its mane keeps bursting into messy brown curls.

The circumstances change too, the mechanism of danger evolving as naturally and nonsensically as from any dream, but there's always a choice: one life or another. Yours or a stranger's. Yours or a mage's. A stranger's or a friend's. One night it's a spooked carthorse barreling toward a cliffside platform full of children or young human woman who looks remarkably like Gwenaëlle, and Caius considers whether he ought to be keeping a tally.

Tonight, it's late before the dream even begins. He shouldn't be out like this, tired and soul-worn and far from his body after another night wasted interrogating spirits who have no answers but the ones plucked from his own mind — and he realizes that fact at precisely the moment he pulls Cedric from his own dream, into someplace he didn't intend.

A library creaks into focus. Old, dusty, small enough to fit in one room of the modest Tevene manor it inhabits, but still large enough to accommodate a sunken clear space at its center, strewn with parchment and scrolls, chalk and ash. Candlelight makes for poor lighting; shadows loom. Something else looms within them.

no

[dissolving]

Sometimes it's easy. Your life for a stranger's, for a mage; a friend.

Sometimes it's worse, sending folks to the grave with no time to think, only fumbling later for a reason. Gwen'd kill him if he let a kid come to harm. Vanya's a soldier, he knows the risks —

There are times that reason fails. Fifi's lighter than Gela, but she's not the one he hauls up a cliff. There are times he gets angry, curses what's coming. The longer they're at it, the Fade bends toward Caius, expectant. Already pressed to shape.

One night, there's a sacked town; an old man straining for a spell. There are orders. Another: Enemies above, a trapped street below. An injured woman, and a Rift that must be shut.

Choices. Fight, kill. Die, choose. Sporadic, infrequent, and he can tell a little now when it's coming; a ripple in the nerves that wrap his ear. A shift of that great hum. When he steps into the stables tonight, he isn't surprised to find them a library.

The light draws him as a moth. At the edge of awareness, his sleeves rearrange themselves. Cedric looks past the books, hunting ash and pattern.