A SINGLE SKYHOLD BREEZE was enough to make her homesick.
chilled, anxious, unfamiliar with the scent of stale fires and dead leaves that’d long lost their crunch beneath the snow. the mountains had been unforgiving, the gates filled with bright bodies that all harbored a deeper dread within them. some gawked, some whispered, some said nothing at all. she was a page out of a fairy tale, but in a land where demons rained from the sky, she wasn’t much to behold any more.
she’d already met up with varric and given him what was long overdue. in the midst of held hope, they’d shared a laugh and a swig each, catching up briefly as they meandered through the musty ruins of a castle that was still well into the works of much-needed renovation. it was then that he’d led her to the last door in the entry, given her a pat on the hand, and sent her on her way to meet the one in question.
the so-called herald. maker guide him, lest she be unable.
beyond the door was something completely different, however. though the castle still had some rustic beauty to it long past its prime, the quarters here told a much more solemn tale, skyhold’s gates kissing her with red sun through the winter air whereas now the only thing greeting her was the rotting wood and the crows littered upon it. they sang in her stride as she ascended, flapped and rained mussed feathers that settled on the staircase as if to guide her. she thought she’d been confident in this reunion. as the steps diminished before her, she was suddenly not so certain.
and, as if part of the motif, the last step revealed a room not much different that the path up; dreary, ridden with open books and crumpled scraps, a considerable amount of bottles all lain on their side, and what appeared to be war plans scattered on the floor like carpeting. some things had been tacked onto the walls; bits and pieces of maps, decorated with red x’s and aggressive writing, as if being personally documented. never before had she seen such ... arranged chaos, even when he was squatting in squalor. she felt as if she no longer needed to hear the full story when it was lying right here in front of her, shambled and grasping, the silhouette of a man lost in a world too big for him.
and so she speaks. a hasty decision, as if suddenly unable to; words surfacing after a shaky breath of his name that wasn’t quite audible the first time.
❛ ... all this time and you’re still ignoring basic housekeeping, ❜ she offers in a familiar humor, voice sweet like liquor in the midst of his ruins. ❛ what am i to do with you? ❜
