#canticled

( never mind that he had, once upon a time / some decade ago or so / seeking out lost souls and forgotten dreams and buried bones. )

It’s quiet / unquiet. Nature makes a constant racket, the streams and the bugs and the animals and the wind in the trees ——— he’s unsure how southerners bear it. How they could prefer it to the bustle of a city / of carts and the murmurings of the populace and the hiss of magic in the air. ❝ Is this a habit of yours? This business of helping wayward mages? ❞ mirth curls around his tongue and he glances back / over / this home and this place and how strange it all is. ❝ Quite the chivalrous endeavor, of course, though I can’t help but wonder if you have any sense of self—preservation. Most would turn a blind eye, pretend as though they hadn’t seen it, lament over this war on their doorstep ——— not you, though. ❞

@canticled liked for a starter for eira

clouds are gathering on the horizon. maybe it’ll rain ———

❝ eira, ❞ her foot bumps against the potion flask on the ground and she hurries to balance it / lest it tip over and be wasted. her eyes flick up / catches her gaze / before dropping again as she presses at a jagged gash. ❝ do you... miss your home? ❞

She’s fidgeting; tugging at her fingers and the straps she wears around her form.  Bad.  Bad.  The Inquisitor will be angry --------- she’s broken something.  They’ll hurt her.  She bites at her lip, gazing down at her handiwork.  Maybe she can hide it?  Maybe she can ------

“Ah!”  But it’s a fool’s errand.  Who should stumble upon the fragile weapon / no, Dorian says she oughtn’t think of herself like that / girl in the corner of the garden than the Inquisitor herself.  Saares’s dark eyes flit, panicked, from Trevelyan to the patch of DEAD FLOWERS ------ burnt to ash.  She hadn’t meant to.  She’d just ------------

Been scared.  A Templar in the garden, voice too loud, saying --- bad things.  She’d been scared, and lot control.  Stupid, stupid.

This isn’t quite what their parents had in mind, which makes it all the more hilarious.

MANY AT SKYHOLD presume them to be in league ——— he supposes they are, around her daughter and little else, but the passersby and the prying eyes are missing far too many pieces of the puzzle to even begin to imagine the full picture. Most are, save Varric ( in whom he didn’t particularly CONFIDE IN, but it seemed appropriate to mention it ) and the Inquisitor and, perhaps, a handful of others. Not the whole inner circle, not by far, more by chance than anything else : though they certainly don’t try to give the option of thinking them predominantly friendly.

Still : Livia has found a place in the Inquisition / and thus they find themselves picking through some odd set of ruins or another, where the walls THRUM WITH MAGIC / similar to Skyhold but different. Not as ancient, but Ages old all the same, and dangerous to boot. Magical traps every which way they turn / not to mention a vivid aura of death that sets his nerves alight. Sending the pair of them makes logical sense, for their skills if nothing else ( his parents had chosen livia of house herathinos to breed the next in the line of house pavus because of the strong possibility of EVEN GREATER MAGIC, after all ) and, truly, it’s not as though he hates Livia.

The same cannot be said for whether she hates him, but he’s rather used to that, by now.

❝ Livia, ❞ he waves his hand at a web that had taken up far too much room in an archway and watches as it blows away / drifting oh so calmly to the ground. ❝ Did you enjoy the Winter Palace? It was all so familiar I nearly expected that we would duel each other in the middle of the ballroom and cause a scene. Luckily quite the scene was caused by the Inquisitor in our stead, otherwise it would have been a dreadfully droll night, never mind the scheming going on every which way we turned. ❞

@canticled​ :  ‘ you owe no one your forgiveness ’ ( livia trying to be ... cordial after the dickwad meeting ) —— LOVELACE. ( accepting )

        How dire must the situation be to demand some form of sympathy from Livia of house Herathinos, the person who hates him most in all of Thedas ( though seraphus abrexis certainly gives her a run for her money / and what a bitter thought that is, indeed ) and has planned at least a hundred different deaths for him by her own hand? Quite so, he thinks, distant and far too close at once. Dire may not begin to properly describe it, in truth, if it calls for such words from her / almost devoid of the standard venomous scorn with which she regards him with !! It feels bizarre and entirely misplaced, something that should have never come to pass after all. He presumed that the sky would split open once more before she spoke to him in such a manner, and had been confident in that presumption, and yet.

        The village of Redcliffe is behind them, small in the distance as they have set up camp in the hills where he had been hiding, furtively, before joining the ranks of the Inquisition. It is behind them yet not far enough, not nearly so, will it ever be? His skin is too tight and the world at once too sharp and blurred about the edges / he feels misshapen, unsettled in his skin, dips his hands into the small body of water that they have set up near though they are bloodless and clean. The water is cool to the touch and he allows it to gather in his palms, watching the clarity, dampening his hands before reaching up and running his fingers through his hair : going wet—dark and slicking back, smooth.

        Her words ——— don’t help. Dorian doesn’t think any words can help, least of all coming from Livia ( though that isn’t to diminish the attempt, which at its core shocks him and he acknowledges the oddity of it, just another reason for him to feel misplaced in his own body ) but they are words and they come from a place of ( ... ) not caring, he may enjoy riling her up but he would never presume that she CARES ABOUT HIM, the world will literally end before that happens, but concern, perhaps. But he appreciates them, the way that they’re so surprising that it shoves his father’s words out of his mind, for now.

        we are too alike, my son, shut up shut up shut up, what is it that you said again, father? we are both too full of pride.

        you owe no one your forgiveness. oh? oh?

        He stares at the twin moons, not quite full, as they begin to rise in the sky / doesn’t wipe away water dragging along his jaw / thinks of the bite of salt in the air and the too tight restraint on his throat. Breathing is easy enough, breathing in time with the flow of the small stream nearby easy enough. Dorian faces the world with a sensation of dullness that will turn to pain soon enough, he knows. Part of him is still reeling from the sight of his father, alone, never mind their conversation.

        ❝   You’re quite right, Livia,   ❞   he says at last, tone lacking in bravado. He’s tired. Exhausted. Worn. Weary, running away from the place that he had once called home in the dead of night, heart fit to bursting in his chest, bile gathering in his esophagus. This is a place for truths, he thinks, this is a place for admissions that can be given over to the water, carried to its depths, salt coating his tongue.

        ❝   I don’t think I can ever forgive him,   ❞   he tells her as much because she prompted it from him / though he knows Livia doesn’t care to know and will discard the information as trivial besides, but : IT FEELS BRACING TO SAY ALOUD. Bracing / and terrifying. He shakes water from his hands, places them, damp, on his knees where he kneels on a flat rock, watching as the stars begin to make their presence known, tucked among the darkening sky.   ❝   That’s part of the problem.   ❞

        Dorian doesn’t know if she understands. Presumes that she hates her own father, given what little he knows / in such a manner and passion that he could never embody. No, no : he loves his father, still. Loves his mother, too. Love turned a weight turned a weapon turned a collar around his throat ——— loves them as a dutiful son is meant to, though he has failed in his duties and YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE and, et cetera.

        His ribs rattle / lungs shudder. He pushes himself to standing in one fluid motion, bones creaking and threatening to crumble at the motion, heaving himself upwards and to his full height. Dorian looks at Livia, a wan smile playing at the corner of his mouth, heart not fully in it, but shades away from his standard brand of inappropriate amusement.   ❝   Did you know my father was being considered for the next Archon?   ❞   It’s a rhetorical question ——— all Altus knew that Halward Pavus had gotten impressively close.

@canticled​ asked: i’m killing someone , hold please . ( from averil ) [ accepting ]

     And he does. If Robin has learned anything of Kirkwall during the while he’s spent here, it’s that there’s usually someone murdering someone else, and oftentimes if Hawke is the one doing the murdering, it’s more than earned. Perfectly content with the knowledge that she likely isn’t killing any innocents for a handful of owed coin, Robin simply waits outside the door, leaning casually against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. 

Abel frowns a frown that deepens with each second. Unsure what he really should do. He had been scouting a good place to rest for the evening, and instead had come upon two mages, an elf and a human. The elven one didn’t look… right, but Abel didn’t want to ask; the feeling that he got was that even if they tried to explain he would likely not be able to understand, furthermore, there were far more pressing concerns than his curiosity. They were alone, in the middle of the woods heading south and while they were mages (and that much had become starkly clear quickly) and he didn’t know what they could do… It didn’t feel right to have seen them and let them stay when he knew that templars were around.

   “I don’t know about grace, miss Dubois…” he hums, sighing through his nose, thin lips closing into a tight line. Looking at the situation coldly, he knew that he would be better to leave them alone and continue their path down wherever they were attempting to run. In his heart, however, he had seen enough mage and templar corpses along the road to know that this would surely lead to their death. His hand holds the reins of his horse tighter as he approaches the fire “And you needn’t worry about tears.” he adds, closing the sentence. It was not about pity, but he couldn’t help himself but wonder… His sister could be in a group such as this.

Or dead. He sighs once again, slowly and carefully removing the helmet “May I approach?”