#cirkled

“ my, my. demanding little thing, aren't you? ” astarion smirked, glancing at vestele as if she had interrupted an important task and not simply caught him perusing which of his small stack of books he might think to reread later. in actuality, him stealing from gale's tome-pile was inevitable. his smirk remained plastered unto his face, a notable tease hitching on his next words.

Lothering was already packed with refugees, but Valeria Hawke had a feeling it wouldn’t be enough. If there really is a blight, it would swallow up the village in a heartbeat, and it seemed like the flow of refugees wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon. Her family were now among them, if only to satisfy the pleading of an eldest daughter. She told them to run — her mother, the twins, even the dog. And so they ran, and they are running, hopefully to somewhere where the blight won’t find them. Rivain sounds nice, or even just the Free Marches. 

Maybe she should’ve left with them. They’d be safer, wouldn’t they? Val was sure she’d be able to fight if it came down to it, and she knew Carver could, seeing as he managed to survive Ostagar. And Bethany… well, their father certainly had taught the Hawke sisters all there was to know about magic. They’d just have to hope it served them well in the real world, at a time when they truly needed it. 

But the truth was that she had to leave eventually, right? All that responsibility she’d felt — the weight of their lives upon her shoulders — was just going to crush her if she could never find a way to actually help, some way of doing something. What was the point in having magic that could help people if she never did? 

She’d seen them — the Grey Wardens and some apostate, moving through the village all day. She’d even seen them fight alongside Sister Leliana, clearly with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Idly shaving chips off a small log of wood with her knife (one of the rare truly beautiful things she actually owned), Val has a proposition to make. Although, with no plan B and her family already far out of her reach, she had no true idea of what her other options were supposed to be. Defend Lothering, maybe? But after an afternoon of standing around the village’s exit to the imperial highway, she noticed them again, perfectly positioned to offer some sort of… ambush? Is it still considered an ambush if it was verbal? Even if the ambusher in question is holding a knife. 

“I figured there’d be more Grey Wardens than this,” she says, her voice relaxed and confident despite what little fear a statement like that might invoke in her. Though, truly, there’s no good way to offer help to a bunch of strangers without seeming bizarre. “The way my brother put it, it seemed like there’d be… maybe, an army of some kind,”

Her words could be mocking, but they aren’t. They’re concerned.

"You seem like you could use all the help you can get,"

when he finally looks up and sees vestele, he jumps. “ maker, when did you get here? ” he lets out a sigh after, covering his face with his hands and dragging them down his cheeks as she moves to his side. “ forgive me. i've been... distracted. i need to get my focus back. ” he'd talked about this with the inquisitor and cassandra the day he threw his kit away. i will not give less to the inquisition than i did to the chantry. i should be taking it. thankfully, they talked him down. he didn't want to show this part of himself to vestele, but it was becoming harder and harder to hide it. “ maybe i just need a break. is that why you came? ” cullen asks, feeling the tightness in his shoulders loosen as he realizes her hand moves up and down his arm. “ whatever the reason, thank you. your presence alone does more to help me than i think you realize. ”

"...Ow! Ow! Ow..." the elf thwacks her with his dainty hands, a shallow stop at putting a stop to whatever spell of madness had reduced her consciousness to that of a piranha—"What's the matter with you?" he scolds her, rubbing his arm with a big, ruddy pout on his lips. "...How come when I do it, I get scolded..."