#nin lavellan

Nearly all of this is him. His voice. His word. His tactician’s guile, served up on a platter to the Inquisitor who could only pick from death or death. A part of him grieves that, in all of this, it isn’t ever life he can offer. 

He continues upwards, and Rion’s boot kicks aside rubble as he plants one foot in front of the other, the Fade rolling off of him in waves in his wake - a slow arrow through the rolling fog, otherwise impenetrable. His skin hums with a faint melody he cannot quite hear, but he knows it well. The Fade is not new to him. He has walked in it and around it for as long as he can recall, and its mercurial form is what gives the waking world its sound in Rion’s eyes.

Stone scrapes across his vision, white and stark. It is consumed by a bubble of black and grey, bulging and popping as flames break around him. There is no mighty roar of falling towers or heaving groan of a collapsing foundation here, no sound, just light, painting the slow decay of a lifetime.

He stares down at Adamant in ruin. No desert sandstorm could polish its stone to diamond now.

Both hands braced on the parapet wall, Rion lets a heavy sigh escape his chapped, dry lips. He’s parched, throat about as dry as the desert they’re in, and the adrenaline keeping his aches at bay is beginning to ebb dangerously. Sweat beads at his brow as nearby flames lick at his skin, and he can see them out of the corner of his eye - that black and grey on the edge of his vision, bubbling away, drawing closer. 

It is a different kind of fire that makes him lift his heavy head. Brighter. More vivid. White-gold, molten, as if someone had squeezed the sunlight like juice from a sweet orange and offered him a drink.

Warm, warm hands are at his face in an instant before Rion has a chance to greet Nindarhmen as he deserves. A kiss meets his cheek, then the other, then lips, and there are words spoken against him that he cannot hear, but he can feel the relief in them. 

“Nin,” Rion mumbles, reluctant to pull away, but eager to see him. He is granted a little space, enough to catch sun-gold eyes and the familiar framing of white vallaslin along his skin, patterns that Rion could recall even if all other senses were lost to him. 

“You didn’t return with the others,” Nin says, in gentle threads of orange. They’re easy for Rion to grasp and pluck from the air, easy to read, easy to know. He reads the silent question left within, and nods in acknowledgement. He’d slipped away when Thalon had his attention elsewhere on the field, a steady hand guiding the chaos spilling out of the tear in reality. Racing through the fortress after Erimond hadn’t left much time to take stock of whose blood soaked the ground, and Rion wanted to see it for himself. 

“I needed a moment,” Rion admits. He is armor-clad, both in person, and in spirit. Nin looks at him, brows raising gently with suspicion that he keeps to himself, and Rion only offers a thin and weary smile. “This isn’t the only Warden outpost I’ve watch go down in flames.”

“Ah,” Nin sighs gently, recognizing the shadow of Amaranthine in Rion’s words. 

“It’s fine, Nin. It’s– it’s fine. I just wanted to see…” See what? Rion isn’t sure. The cost of it all? To recognize some dead faces, to shore up his guilt in case it wasn’t enough already? He doesn’t really have an answer, and he find himself reaching for Nin’s hands still gently cradling his face. Even through gloves, he can feel Nin’s fire lingering beneath fingertips and he turns his face to kiss one palm, and then the other, where he seems to freeze in place as his eyes meet a dead, glassy stare of a Warden on the ground whose legacy will die with this fortress. 

Here, Rion’s breath shudders, and his armour is rent asunder. It is a vulnerable, awful place to stand, and he wishes he were anywhere else at all. 

The faintest hint of pressure at his jaw turns his gaze back on Nin, who then lowers his hands to clasp at Rion’s elbows instead, fixing him in place, stopping him from stumbling down a familiar and unforgiving path. 

“Vir dirthera, Rion,” Nin tells him, gentle and reassuring, but there is no room for argument either. “The past grows still and quiet no matter which way you leave it behind, and all it can do is shape your future. So we tell the tales, regardless of how they end.”

Fighting Nin’s wisdom would be a battle already lost for Rion. But he is used to fighting losing battles, is he not? He’s been in one from the start. 

“Every choice they had in life was taken from them and they died as traitors. Do we tell that story too?” 

Rion’s fingers twitch, restless and angry, but uncertain. Moments later, Nin’s hands find his own.

“Yes, we do. And the ones that will follow - we are not done yet.” Nin squeezes Rion’s hands. “Thalon has Erimond. I suspect his mind is already made in the matter of the magister’s fate, but I think he needs your heart in this decision too.”

“He doesn’t need… I…” Rion’s brow scrunches, eyes closing as he struggles to find the words. He takes a breath, steadying himself, using Nin’s presence as a tether, and tries again. “My heart’s just angry, Nin. Doesn’t have much room for anything else anymore.”

That’s a lie, and they both know it. Nin and Thalon both hold space there, comfortably, without question, in amongst the labyrinth of complexities Rion attempts to simplify into a single, hard, unbreakable line. 

Nin’s smile holds that knowledge safe. He will allow Rion his armour for the moment if it lets him walk out of Adamant in one piece.

“Then maybe anger has its place today. Come,” Nin nods over his shoulder, gesturing for Rion to follow as he begins to turn away. Rion keeps hold of one of his hands, however, and gently asks for him to pause a moment as he closes the distance and kisses him again, far too gently for a man who only has anger in his heart. 

“Thank you.”

Nin hums gently in appreciation, eyes searching for a reason in Rion’s face as he steps away, gesturing for Nin to lead the way once more. 

“For what?”

An impossible question to answer. 

Before Nin could speak, the door to the small cabin opened and a scrawny young elf with light brown hair slipped inside carrying a crate. She did not bear the vallaslin of the Dalish, and was dressed in the threadbare garments of a serving girl. As she turned to place the crate down, her eyes swept over the bed where Thalon and Nin sat.

“Oh!” The crate dropped to the floor with a crash. “I-I didn’t know you were awake. I swear! I’d never have intruded.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Thalon. “Can you tell me–”

The girl dropped to her knees. “I beg your forgiveness and your blessing. I am but a humble servant.”

“My blessing?” Thalon looked to Nin with a bemused smile. Nin said nothing, but his expression was uncharacteristically somber as he regarded the girl.

“I-I don’t mean to presume, my lord,” she hastened to reply, her hazel eyes wide. “It’s only…they say you saved us. The Breach stopped growing, just like the mark on your hand. It’s all anyone has talked about for the last three days.”

Three days. Thalon looked down at his hand where the mark burned a Fade-green slash across his palm. It had been three days, then, since Thalon had regained consciousness in the chantry dungeon beneath Haven, three days since Seeker Pentaghast had marched him in chains past the hateful glares of armed men and women who believed that he had slain their Divine.

They have decided your guilt, the Seeker had told him in a voice that made it clear she shared their sentiment.

Three days ago, Thalon had believed that he would not live to see Nindarhmen or his clan again. Yet now…

“You’re saying…they’re pleased with me?” Thalon asked, unable to believe the words even as they left his mouth.

The girl seemed to shrink inward and wrung her hands, glancing from Thalon to Nin as if seeking encouragement or reassurance. “I’m only saying what I heard. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s all right, Pip,” Nin told her gently. “There’s no need to be frightened.”

Pip nodded, visibly calming as she rose to her feet. “I’m certain Lady Cassandra would want to know you’ve wakened. She said, ‘At once.’”

“And where is she?” Thalon asked.

“In the chantry, with the Lord Chancellor.” Pip had already scurried halfway out the door. “‘At once,’ she said.” When she was gone, Nindarhmen let his breath out slowly through his nose and looked back at Thalon.

“The people in the village are calling you the Herald of Andraste,” Nin said. “As far as I can tell, they think their prophet saved you from the explosion at the Conclave.”

Nin hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “What did happen, Thalon? When I saw the explosion from the village…” Nin laced his fingers with Thalon’s and gave a tight squeeze. “…I thought I had lost you.”

Thalon closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I don’t remember much. I was running and there were…things chasing me. Hideous spider-things. I remember a woman above me, shrouded in golden light. I couldn’t see her face. She reached out her hand…and then everything went dark.”

Nin was silent for a long moment. “So…you have no idea who that woman was? How you survived?”

soooo... i can explain.