#oathes

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dishonored starters | @oathes​

   ❛ and you make funny faces when you’re not sleeping. ❜

     it’s not his best riposte, no, but carver’s never been particularly clever, least of all when half-awake. he rubs the sand clumsily from his eyes, one-handed swipes at the corners, and squints about camp for his bearings. first light brushes everything in lilac and cornflower ― it’d be a welcome sight even if carver hadn’t been staring down the horde a drowsy moment ago. 

“hawke speaks well of you,” she nods, “there are few who we can trust of late, certainly in regards to the wardens, and for that i am grateful for your help in all of this. it’s...a sad business, i think, if i may speak honestly.”

OLD MEMES FROM THE OLD BLOG

She’s never been this far north. She’s never been anywhere besides Denerim, really, before all of this, before the Wardens and war. These days her heart thunders in her chest, beating out a pattern of grief-guilt-grief-guilt whenever she catches herself looking out over the world around them, breathless in the face of its beauty even with Loghain and an Archdemon ( which one is worse? ) hovering over them all, promising destruction. But the thundering subsides, the grief softens, the guilt fades, with each passing day — usually with him, only ever with him.

     They’ve built a fire in the abandoned hearth, fed by Sophia Dryden’s rotting desk and a few of the broken shelves from the kitchens, and she’d liberated a filthy fur-lined cloak from some long-dead Warden’s wardrobe, beaten the dust from it over the snow, wheedled Morrigan to conjure an extra flame so she could let it dry after she’d scrubbed it clean with melted snow and some ancient soap. For now, she stands on the bridge between Sophia’s office and Avernus’ tower, the space cleaned of old bones, and she wonders how long she can remain without freezing half to death. 

     “There’s this amazing thing I’ve heard some of the others talking about.” She’d heard his approach but hadn’t turned around; Alistair is the only one of their companions that Aelith trusts wholeheartedly with her back turned, and it feels a bit foolish but she wants him to know it. Strong hands settle on her shoulders for a moment, and she realizes he’s draping the cloak around her, freshly dried and smelling now of soap and smoke. She looks back at him with a smile, bright and thankful, as she pulls it tight around her. “It’s called sleep. I hear it’s good for you.”

     “Can’t sleep,” she says ruefully, wrinkling her nose at the teasing. “It’s been quite an afternoon. Uncovering ancient Warden history, revealing the truth about a revolution against a despot...” Well. Gets the blood pumping, doesn’t it, hardly leaves serenity in its wake. Alistair moves to stand beside her and on a whim Aelith reaches out to grasp his hand in her own, fingers lacing into his with all the tenderness and intimacy of old friends. She has done this once or twice before, usually when it’s dark enough that he won’t catch sight of the crooked way she smiles whenever he squeezes her hand in assent. She loves the weight of his hand in hers, the predictable pattern of callouses on his fingers, that he moves as if by instinct to stand between her and a threat, however benign. She loves that she is heard, that the thrumming grief-guilt-grief-guilt of her pulse is met only by kindness, that it’s easier to see how breathtaking the landscape is when he stands next to her.

     Like clockwork, he squeezes her smaller hand in his, and she wonders how often he was touched with tenderness, with affection, during his younger years, when someone took his hand simply for the comfort of it, when someone brushed his hair back if he was ill, when someone held him in grief without conditions, simply because he could use the kindness, simply because they had kindness to spare. Not for the first time, she wishes they’d met ten years ago. Not for the first time, she has trouble remembering how they met at all, when he has so artfully woven himself into the fabric of her life that she cannot imagine a time before him. 

     “Do we ever have uneventful days?” he asks wryly, and he grins at her, a little cheeky, a little sad. He should have a warm home with an oft-used hearth in Redcliffe, with a mother who frets over him and a sister who asks him to help her wrangle the children and nieces and nephews he can swing onto his shoulders. More and more she thinks that they are one another’s family, now. She hopes she is an adequate replacement for what he’s lost.

     Aelith hums thoughtfully, thumb stroking idly against the curve of his hand into his wrist. "We shall,” she says in a tone of mock severity. “Uneventful days, far as the eye can see — ”

     “Stitching linens for our comrades-in-arms with matching thread,” he offers, tone matching hers. “Without any rush or threat of danger.”

     “Eating stew prepared with herbs and perhaps in more than simply shades of grey?”

     He raises his free hand to his heart, lip trembling. “You wound me.” And then, voice a bit softer, hand tightening around hers he asks, as if he doesn’t know if he wants the answer — “And when the uneventful days come, where will you be?”

     She doesn’t hesitate, simply answers, “Where you are,” as if that is enough. ( And isn’t it? ) Aelith leans into him, and she covers their joined hands with her free one, frowning as she feels how cold his fingers are. “Where else would I go?”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says he does not give a damn about the damning evidence against Donald, Lindsey won’t bother listening to any evidence.

In a criminal or civil trial Lindsey would be immediately removed as a juror.

Lindsey, according to the Constitution you are required to take an oath to “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”

So you are stating you will violate your impeachment trial oath, even before it begins.

   ❛ — i was at ostagar, too, you know. in cailan’s regiment. ❜ 

     carver’s not sure why he’s sharing this. it’s nothing anyone has ever wanted to hear, and moreover, hardly something carver has ever wanted to talk about. after all, what good is there in recounting defeat, the likes of which lost them almost everything? energy would be better spent, carver thinks, beating a dead ogre on the outskirts of lothering.