Happy DADWC day Mer!! How for Isseya or another character of your choice the following quote from Paladin's Strength by T Kingfisher: "You are not a failure, you know, simply because you can't endure something unendurable."
THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING PROMPT JACS it screamed grey warden, but especially for the hard choices Isseya has to endure ;-;
She goes to be alone, after.
There aren't many places free of bother in Fortress Haine, but she finds one, down the steps from the griffons' tower. The breeze off the mountains carries their scent down after her and Isseya stifles a sob into her fist.
She has no right to cry. Not after what she just did. But she cannot stop the tears that pour down her cheeks or the aching burn in her throat. Her sorrow is the only noise--there are no sounds of roosting or grooming from the griffons above, not now that she's doomed them to such a terrible fate.
The grass around her wilts as the Fade responds to her grief and aimless magic spills from her fingertips. She crouches in the tower's shadow long enough for her legs to cramp, the stone digging harsh against her back.
She's too aware of her surroundings not to notice his approach. Padded feet step gently in the grass until his shadow falls over her face. Her eyes are closed against a painful reality, so she only hears him squat beside her, until Calien's gentle, calloused hands are guiding her into a tender embrace.
She stiffens. His comfort is far more than she deserves. She should be strung up; cast out for the darkspawn to take, for the vultures to claw at until her soul gave way to the Beyond and was doomed to whatever void the truly monstrous were damned to.
Calien holds her as she weeps; he does not say anything as her tears soak through his robes. Of all people, she supposes the Antivan Crow understands the grief of the unavoidable. There are things you must do to survive. There are things that break your heart and destroy your soul. Often, these things are the same.
"I'm a monster," she whispers hoarsely. Calien's hood rustles as he shakes his head.
"No more than I am," he murmurs, stroking the gray-streaked hair that spills over her shoulder. "Who handed you the tools?"
"It was a thing of my own creation. You had nothing to do with that."
He shrugs. It's beside the point and they both know it. Isseya rubs her eyes and struggles to sit up.
"How long did you hate yourself," she asks slowly, "after you made a deal with a demon for your life?"
Calien doesn't answer immediately. His silence is thoughtful, and something Isseya is used to. She knows he is not ignoring her, but searching out the words for the emotions she can feel in the way his heart pounds against her back.
"I don't know that I have," he finally says. His hand finds hers and he traces the staff-made callouses on her palm, the scars of a thousand battles and griffon bites over her knuckles. Isseya sobs a laugh, making a fist of the hand he's holding.
"Good sign for me, that."
"It's a Blight, Isseya," Calien says, not uncaring. "Wardens do unforgivable things to save the world. They are less irredeemable when thousands of lives persist because of it."
"And what of the lives ended?" she answers harshly. Calien just shakes his head.
"There is no philosophy that makes a Blight make sense. You know that."
"There is a difference between not making sense and--and this," she says the last word as a sob, gritting her teeth for some semblance of coherence. "This should never have happened. It's as unnatural as the darkspawn, accepted only because we have a veneer of control. We have no choice, but how are we better than them, if this is how we treat our own?"
"Perhaps we aren't," Calien says, a beat later. He tucks Isseya's head beneath his chin; the vibration of his voice against her skull is soothing as she does not deserve. "Perhaps we cannot be better than base, during a Blight. Perhaps we can do nothing more than survive. That does not make us bad, Isseya. It makes us people."
"It's not worth it," she whispers, new tears pricking at her throat. "I'd rather die."
His grip spasms as it tightens around her waist. "You don't mean that."
She does. But she's nothing if not good at concealing the toll this life takes on her, by now. She tilts her head to press a placating kiss at the hollow of his throat.
"No," she lies, leaning her head back against his chest. "But I'd have a place to put all of this guilt if I did."
