#lastbled

listen 👏 up 👏 everybody 👏

“You are shaking,” he notes, his eyes glued to hands than squeeze around empty air. “Have you eaten?”

EVENTUALLY, ONE DOES get used to this climate. The glum skies, the pouring rain, the ever-present smell of dog fur, mud, leather and wet wood. The Northern coasts of Ferelden are her HOME now, with all its unpleasantness and moisture and varying stenches barely masked by perfume and frequent baths. But there’s another smell permeating through Crestwood. The sickening, almost oddly sweet stench of ROT as the drowned dead return to their village, pummeling their gates with restless abandon as angry spirits move their decaying bodies. There are so MANY, she thinks - far too many. Amidst all this death, very few traces of Blight remain; a mystery yet to be solved. And a mystery that seems to interest the Grey Wardens that passed through here VERY little.  Oh, she’s aware they’re on a search for one of their own; a traitor, or so Clarel seems to think. A most curious development, as such manhunts are rarely a priority. The Orlesian Order is going through something MOST odd, it seems. Alas, they miss their prey entirely - along with their duty of being protectors to the common folk, from the Darkspawn or no. And truth be told, Warden Surana is LESS than impressed. Partially responsible for diverting the other Wardens away from Crestwood, the elf now leans on a mossy boulder not far from the cave where Warden Stroud made his refuge. She wears not the recognizable uniform of the Order, but her elaborate travel robes of fur, leather, and velvet, cloaked in black as a heavy hood shelters her from the rain. Gloved fingers rest on an ebony staff, her head lifting as someone’s steps through tall, wet grass get closer. She seems distracted, expression oddly hollow. That one’s a mage, for certain - she feels that familiar hum of mana.

As her eyes finally look up to take in the stranger’s approach, very faint recognition passes on her face - if only because the DESCRIPTIONS of this person tend to be quite detailed.

❝ poor little bird, disappointing her friends again. ❞ 

It sounds awful, but honestly? There’s appreciation. He wakes in the morning without that kick to the head, without the drain of mana that comes from a room that promises no companionship. No kindness. There’s better places than Darktown. But, there’s also worse. Here, there’s no Templars ( not quite ). No Circle ( sort of ). No Grey Wardens (he’s got that at least) that look and whisper of their company an Abomination to be put to rest, to be rid of the world and to do the will of the Maker. Judge. Jury. Executioner. It had been the same --- the replacement of one set of chains for another, and a switch from righteous flame to the ever vigilant Griffon upon which they once rode. 

He cannot imagine what Karl had been through. Tries, but cannot quite bear it. The memory is still raw, and there still is that ache where reasons that brought him here had come with a cost of blood and a death of one he truly loved. He still has the knife, cleans it, places it beneath the pillow of a bed he rarely sleeps in. To be Tranquil he thinks is a fate worse than death, and it shakes him to the bone to think of what was stolen --- life, will, the decision to do what he wished. Fault there, a seed of guilt nurtured by justice turned vengeance, and he curls his fist in hot, tempered anger. 

Justice and Anders ride mind in tandem, but he knows he has control. Yet...here is a moment where he feels a falter. Just a moment before a knock at the door. A turn of his head and it ebbs away, tucked in to secret compartment as Hawke enters the clinic. “ Did I miss something? ” he asks, his hands running through hair in an attempt to neaten the mess he tries to tie. A step forward. “ Something I can do? ”

hawke in the fade: literally how am i still getting these letters

:^/