#kirkwll

Merc's Meme Collection

To say that Inara is unhappy to see Hawke again is quite the understatement.

The former Warden-Commander had her reasons to avoid the Inquisition, and they were not small in number. Anything that had to do with Haven did not need to have anything to do with her, for one. The Chantry was trying to murder her, for another.

And now... this.

Her gaze is hard and cold as she regards the strange ally that Loghain has gained himself. Behind her eyes, the visions of finding Anders, his dark blood running through the gaps on Kirkwall's stones, flashes through her mind. The weight of his body in her arms. The terror of not knowing if she could save him.

You keep him alive, you fucking demon. One last command.

Loghain says it's time to move past it. He's a stupid old man, sometimes.

And yet, at Loghain's side, Inara helped to keep the Venatori from swarming Varric's pal. She could've watched the battle from her hiding place in the rocks. Said nothing. Done nothing.

Perhaps she should have. It seems Hawke has mistaken it for a sign of friendship.

There has been a cadence to this. He writes as she makes commentary, he nettles her, she spits back at him, and he edits along with it. She's nestled herself somewhere, lost to plush furnishings or something of the like; his focus is instead the tone of this next chapter, how it paces seems to be the thing chasing him, the very tail ahead of the dog so he strikes through a word, again as she speaks. He doesn't laugh at first; instead, his quill strikes through one more word before he finds himself placing the quill back in an inkwell.

Her question rolls against his mind, back and forth for a moment before his brows knit and his hands meet - no, she had not, but then again, fools in love never really found tact or reason; love was like fire, something hot lost to a forge. Something his hands unlace for, and he snuffs out the candle on the desk, the desk he has claimed these last few days, both keeping company as they work ( well, her more his editor today than working on her own ).

It isn't the fire he reached for years ago, not the fire that burned him and many others. So, callouses are good now at tampering that heat out, forefinger and thumb meeting on the wick of the candle, a sigh on his lips as the wax falls, white wax falling to brass, pooling there and cooling against the metal. He still doesn't move; there are blueprints he sees in the back of his mind - and well, none of that really matters now, but he can answer her question because of it.

The chair scrapes against the stone as he moves, hefting himself to stature as he does it, and he lulls his shoulder at her question; he does it again as he meets her eye. "Well, I saw it - I can only write what I saw." That part is true, but the part he leaves out is something starcrossed, something tender, something that he doesn't think Kirkwall needs to know, and it is not something anyone needs to see other than the pair. Those words stay within him, settled somewhere like the letters in his desk, the ivy that covers his own story and heart, the people he could and would never place aside.

@kirkwll

The sharp tone of Kirkwall's newest Champion catches the Knight-Commander's ear long before the sound of her heavy door sliding open or that of her bootsteps; a hand comes to ball into a fist at the undue interruption. To say Meredith had not expected Hawke to be on her feet, much less in her office is an understatement.

Still, her jaw tightens as she rises to her full height, blatantly eyeing the younger woman over. The fight against the Arishok had been brutal, from what she was told by eyewitnesses, and from the very fact that Hawke had collapsed and stayed as such for days afterward.

"I did," Meredith admits; it isn't a lie, though her intent had not been out of friendship nor respect, but a matter of checking whether or not Hawke was going to succumb to her wounds or remain alive for the time being. Clearly, as it were, the latter seems to be the case. She sighs under her breath, and folds her arms across her breastplate; piercing blue eyes stare at Sioned without breaking away.

Memes! There's Lots || Accepting

I don't give a shit what you appreciate, she only barely does not say as she continues to glare daggers at the dwarf she's been wrenched away from there at in the bar room.

Anders holds her, and it is only because it is him doing the holding that she does not fight. She huffs, heavy and hot breaths full of rage. Her muscles tingle with an almost monstrous urge to rip Varric Tethras apart.

It is only begrudgingly that her attention moves to the woman who addressed her. Anders says something that does not permeate her ears, but she hears his nervous laugh. Feels his fingers flex against her skin. Something something let's all get a drink.

Inara, you don't mind buying a new round do you? See? She doesn't mind. Anders' hands moving, practically scruffing her like a rabid street cat.

"I didn't mean to spill your drink," she finally says as she offers Sioned something less than a scowl. "It was just in the way."

Of murder is omitted.

( circe // accepting ) SIONED [ @kirkwll ] WROTE: ❝I never claimed to be good.❞

❝FEW HAVE CLAIMED IT FOR you.❞ Her voice was steady as the Frostbacks, but her heart beat like a hummingbird's wings: fast and fragile. All her anger at Varric's deception had fled the moment she'd heard the Champion's voice. Doubt took its place. Inadequacy. If Cassandra had not failed to find her — if she'd been at the Divine's side, even if Sioned did not assume the mantle of Inquisitor —

But, it was pointless to dwell on what could not be changed. They could only look forward or stumble over the future that would not stop for their regret.

❝But, you have been a true champion at heart. When others hesitated, you charged forward. I have heard accounts of what happened in Kirkwall,❞ including Varric's, that serpent-tongue, ❝and I find it difficult to judge your actions. It doubtless would have been worse had you done nothing as so many others seemed content to do.❞

She says it like it's spun gold. He laughs at it loudly and crudely and slams his hand against the table. Hawke repeats it firmer that time, and he tilts his head; she's actually serious - and he wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve,

"Can't, physically incapable."

Aveline, I thought you'd have noticed by now: I lie...a lot.

That's a truth, but it doesn't bubble over. Instead, he plays not dumb but something nearly like it. It's better this way, rational this way.

Then, her words are repeated one last time, like a whisper to the air - yet the words are still pointed at him, still in his direction as she needles him, nearly imploring a why as she does it. Like the third time, it seems to be the charm, and the tankard comes down on the table, and he rolls a shoulder. So, he pipes up about the prince."He's a liar." It's honesty; it's what she wants, but he can see through the golden words; he knows them all too well.

Liar. Lying is a sin.

"What?" Varric asks, over the distinct stare of disapproval. "I didn't say it was a bad thing; he's just a liar, something under all that polish and gold plating." He rotates the tankard.

There are days that he is but a ghost, perhaps a shadow? Wordplay is one of those things that muddles his thoughts. It would be easier if he could splash ink across the page, and it would form into the words that are seared into the back of his eyes, a story that needs to be threaded from his head to the page, but yet it's just a tap of a pen as he rewrites the same words over and over, hoping that somehow the page ends up turned and the real story will be on the back.

Annoying when it doesn't happen, but his quill glides across the parchment and his frustration flows into those words; they aren't the right ones, but they are a start. They are something that ends up on the page. After all, it's something, and that's enough. Yet, he's lost to his own thoughts, lost in his own head, treading through the story he wants to tell versus the one that ends up on paper.