“Probably.”

Inara knows a deflection when she hears one – she’s a master of them, after all. Unfortunately for the Inquisitor, she is also a special stubborn sort of asshole, and the Warden was not moving. She’d had a feeling that her reception here, at the threshold of Alanari’s personal space, wouldn’t be the warmest. Close friends, they were not. Shit, truthfully it didn’t even truly seem as if they had any interest in being more than uneasy allies. 

Truthfully, she couldn’t even say she blamed them. 

None of that was about to move her, however. Arms folded over her chest, expression dark, she watched them sit there in the darkness and marveled at just how unsettlingly… familiar this all seemed. 

But that was another time, another place, another world-ending crisis. She was not them, and they were not her, and that was all for the best. 

     “I uh–” Truth be told, she doesn’t even know how to approach this, approach them. Truth be told, she probably should have gone to Ian, first. He made things… easier. “I think I might know some things about. You know. The stuff with your brother. I think I might be able to help.”

Well, they’d tried subtlety. If she wished to stay, she could do so in silence. Their careful examination of the scar marring their palm might even fascinate her. 

But she doesn’t stop, doesn’t keep her silence, and their attention snaps back up to her at the mention of Taven. 

six word stories || accepting

six word stories || accepting

Tired of it plaguing their dreams and days alike. Surrounded by people whose ultimate intentions they did not know, people whose loyalties seemed muddied--

Even now, they blink and see swords at their throat.

Tired. Tired. Tired. 

Just one more loaf of bread, one more strip of dried meat, and they would have what they needed to flee. All of this would be an unpleasant memory. 

The path to the gate is as deserted as Alanari had hoped, though they still examine warily every shadow, familiar or not.  Still deserted as they cross the threshold. Still--

Someone coughs, or clears their throat, as soon as Alanari is through the gate. Not just anyone, and certainly not who they’d expected to have followed them. 

As unobtrusively as they could, Alanari turns to better conceal their pack in the shadows of the gate. If he hadn’t already noticed what they carried, then perhaps this could still work. 

Breathe. 

“Solas. Couldn’t sleep either?”