#thedasweekend

Vivienne takes the Inquisitor's gear so Cadash can go ahead and wash first, since they'll need a lookout so they don't all get caught out by red templars while they're naked.

She's stocky, like all dwarves, no real softness to her. But not as lean as the Bull imagined, with the speed she can manage. The blue tattoos arent just on her face, but along her arms and legs, and along her back. More tattoos than the casteless he's met, about as many as some Carta he'd seen. Probably a good story there, for another time. There's a jagged scar that runs between her breasts, up over her collarbone and ends at her neck, like someone tried to gut her and got the angle wrong. Got to be a good story, too.

When she's about waist deep in the water, she turns back towards them at the bank, where they're washing the clothes.

"Hair?" she says to Vivienne.

"Yes darling," Vivienne replies. "I have oil for after."

Cadash nods, and starts unbraiding her hair and sideburns. Reminds the Bull a little of being a kid; if he grew out his hair he'd have the same tight curls as Cadash, and remembers the oils the tamassrans used to put on his after he bathed. Shaved it all off before he went into service, never grown it out since.

Cadash disappears under the water, and emerges a few seconds later, skin gone to gooseflesh. Once she's done washing she sits on a rock at the bank, her daggers in reach, and seems content to let the sun dry her out as she combs oil through her hair.

They lay the clothing out in the sun, and the rest of them wade into the stream.

"Not that cold," Dorian says pleasantly.

The Bull looks up at the falls, imagines the water's travelled along the river in the heat of midday, reaching them at the plunge warmed up. It's nice, refreshing. The riverbed is full of smooth stones, nothing too jagged - feels pretty nice on his sore feet, dozens of little points of smooth pressure.

Vivienne wades over to him to hand him a bar of soap and a cloth. Kind of expects her to tell him to wash behind his ears, but she just gives him an appraising sort of once over, a little raise of her eyebrow when he eyes settle on his soft cock and balls, hanging heavily between his legs, above the water's surface. There's no intent to it, but a curiosity satisfied - not really surprising. People wonder if he's proportional, even people like Vivienne.

He nods, and tries to find a slightly deeper area closer to the fall plunge, save his knees a bit from having to crouch.

Vivienne has lean, honed muscles that remind him of ballet dancers, without the stringy, dehydrated look that Orlais is into right now. He's pretty sure she incorporates dance into her training forms, and she moves with the grace of a dancer even as she sets to washing in the river. Her breasts have an upward turn to them, full and bottom heavy, and her nipples are pierced with silver.

"It's a rather mundane piercing in Orlais, you know," she says, by of of acknowedging his eyes on her.

"You're not mundane."

"Quite right."

"Rather easy to take to, I imagine," says Dorian, soaping up his armpits, also looking at Vivienne's breasts with interest. The Bull can smell the sandalwood of his soap even at a few paces. "Magical healing right after?"

"One of the less discussed benefits of magic," Vivienne muses, eyes sweeping along Dorian's body. "I'm rather surprised to see you've only jewellery at your face."

Dorian's nose ring catches the sunlight. The Bull knows, even if it can't see it at this distance, that as well as the nose and multiple piercings in his ears, he also has the slightest scar at his eyebrow from a piercing in his youth.

"I think I'd look rather marvelous with gold."

"Oh yes, with a chain, under something sheer, with a boat neckline."

Dorian is tall, surprisingly broad for a mage, well muscled. Not just for show, even though Tevinter is a lot of that; he's seen him training, crazy aethetic moves with a martial practice stave. He's hairy, too; not Blackwall hairy, but a defined trail under his navel into a well-manicured bush, and a little across his chest; present right now, but sometimes shaved away. The Bull gets a brief look at the adorable mole on his left ass cheek as he turns and squats, submerging himself to rinse off the soap.

"Hey, I'm not getting left out if we're all getting our tits pierced," the Bull says. "Boss, you in?"

"Been there, done that," Cadash calls from her naked sentry point.

"Bull, my dear, I rather think you're the one most liable to snag a nipple piercing and rip it out, the way you like to go about bare-chested."

The Bull grabs his chest with both hands, covering his nipples in mock-anxiety.

"Paint me a picture, why don't you."

"Perhaps some horn caps, for a little sparkle," Vivienne suggests, as she kneels, water coming up to her shoulders. "They'd protect your horns, too. Silver or gold, both would look good."

"What about dawnstone?"

"More pretty, less practical; a little brittle."

"I'd look so good," the Bull coos, and walks under the waterfall, turns his face up against the rush of water, let's it fill his ears for a moment.

Later, once the've washed, they sit on the warm rocks at the bank together, drying in the sun. Dorian's moustache has gone all fluffy, and he's trying to tame it without breaking their reverie by going to dig through his pack. Vivienne brings heat into her hands to help dry out Cadash's hair before loosely braiding it back up - he recognises the way she moves her hands to draw magical heat into her fingers and palms, the same way Dorian does before he uses heat on the Bull's knee or ankle.

He can see the shadows slowly moving, and they'll lose the sunlight over the little spot of river soon, forcing them back to the fight. He leans back on his arms, and finds Dorian there. Dorian presses his warm back along the Bull's, tipping his head back against his shoulder, and lets out a contended sigh.

[my fic on ao3] [my fic on tumblr] [bluesky] [prompt me]

Only in dreams, now.

Warm fingers, breath light with citrus. 

The hairs at the back of their neck stirred, the press of lips just beneath their ear. 

Agony and bliss, blended. Inextricable. 

They are tangled in their sheets, a warm, quiet room where the whispers do not reach them. His hand over their chest and his heartbeat at their spine.

They are seated before a great aquarium, his fingers gentle as he unwinds their hair, stress and worry falling to the floor with their shed. 

They recline on a coarsely woven blanket, and he rolls to prop himself over them, and he is here and he is present, violet eyes brighter than the stars that crown him. 

“You’re blocking my view,” they complain, pressing their fingers to the tree that marks his cheeks. Pushing without pressure, because they will die if they lose sight of him now. 

“I am the view,” he laughs. 

They are alone in a field of ashes, and the scent of citrus is lost beneath the burning. 

They can stand amid the ruin, or they can walk. The flames sputter, weak enough to navigate. 

They walk.

Blackened trunks rise around them. Every step stirs clouds amid the destruction. 

“Are you a forest?” he asks, from somewhere far away. An old debate. What becomes of a forest when the fire has died is kinder than what will become of them. 

“Where are you?” They need his answer, and he cannot give one that satisfies.  

Their steps turn, speeding. Urgency that drives them without direction. Need and want and regret and anger. 

Fingers lace their wrist, threading the spaces between the bangles they had claimed, and he spins them into a dance. 

“You are always running, little star,” he chides. “How am I to catch you?”

Citrus on his breath. His hand is warm where he spreads his palm across the small of their back. 

When he spins them, the ashes scatter. Dust glitters, the scorched trees dissolving into the swirling void of space. They dance in steps half a beat broken, the nebula around them correcting what time has taken. 

“I am caught,” they confess. 

“I am gone,” he reminds them. 

“Not here,” they say. “Never here.” 

He smiles, softer than sunlight and far more wanted. 

“I need to tell you something,” they confess. 

“It's too late,” he tells them. 

“It can't be too late,” they argue with a ghost, with time, with loss. “Let me tell you now.”

“I'm not here, estar'lath.”

“Yes, you are.”

He smiles, and the violet in his eyes is bright. Agony and bliss, when he touches their cheek. They can feel the warmth of his fingers, the way he traces their skin. It doesn't matter that he sees their scars. It never should have mattered. 

“You should have told me sooner,” he murmurs.

“Would it have changed anything?” A desperate question, and an unfair one. They need to be angry, and he is dead and they are not. 

He doesn't answer. 

“Would it have saved you?” They press their question into his mouth, layering their lips and chasing his taste. 

Citrus, laced with ashes. 

“We will never know,” his kiss is chaste, closed lips to the open wound of their wanting, their wishing, their hopelessness. “But you should have told me sooner.” 

“Let me say it now,” they plead. 

“You have to wake up,” he says, and there is a canyon between them. They stand amid blackened trunks, and he stands in a starlit field, and even in dreams they know they cannot cross the chasm. 

“Please,” they beg.

“There is work to do.” They can see the sad turn to his smile even from this distance. “The work comes first. Maybe after. Maybe then it will be time.” 

“There is always work to do,” they spit. “I don't care anymore.”

“Yes, you do. Wake up, little star. You cannot change the choices you made. You cannot change the choices other people make.”

Another old debate. Their heart slams into their ribs, railing and rejecting the truth of it even as defeat drags its beat into their stomach. 

“Don't ask me to go,” they say. 

“I'm not here,” he says. “Wake up, little star. Go do the work. You always choose the work.”

The dream dissolves around them, and the bed they awaken to is too empty to be warm. 

They deserve the chill, they think, pushing themself from the mattress, gooseflesh rising on their skin as the air hits places sheets had shielded. 

And even dead, even in dreams, even as a ghost, Felassan is always right.

They drag themself from the dream as though peeling free of cobwebs. 

There was a power in her. She was slight, for a human, with a delicacy to her carriage that made her look far more fragile than she was. But he knew—from ample, bitter experience—just how capable she was. As a mage. A fighter. A hunter. A tactician.

He respected her.

But he could not allow that to sway him.

"Calpernia." Her eyes narrowed slightly, and he wondered at it. Was she offended by his return of the familiar form of greeting? Suspicious? Analyzing?

Tired?

Many questions, and so few answers. But at least these were new questions, something different from the monotony of his agony. He had done well in designing this prison. Too well. The irony that he suffered his own design was not lost on him, no more than the irony of how constantly he suffered his own designs was lost on him.

"Or do you prefer 'Rook,' now?"

"I prefer answers, Dread Wolf."

"As do we all." She blinked. Surprised by his candor, perhaps?

Or it was just a blink. If he let himself, he could find patterns in the rush of wind, in the sighs of strangers, in the movement of clouds. He tried to not let himself, but it was harder here, now, with so little to occupy his thoughts aside from misery. Still, better to remain focused: a deep analysis of this conversation would follow, and he needed to pay attention to what was before he determined what it meant.

"Here I thought Wisdom had all answers." His lips curled at the obvious contempt in her voice, but he resisted the petty urge to bare his teeth. He would not be transformed into the beast he had so often been called.

"You've much to learn about wisdom," he said after a moment, "and about me."

"Why?"

He tilted his head, surprised by the question. She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. She was tense, guarding, shoulders raised. He had the brief thought, absurd under these circumstances, that she would be sore later.

"Wisdom is worth learning. Worth committing to learning, for it never ends. As for me? I should think that obvious."

"There's Pride."

He grinned, sharp and bright. And if he bared his teeth now, well, so be it.

"Quite so." His smile faded, searching her eyes across the divide. "I do not offer my history. I do not offer my thoughts. I do not offer my feelings. None, save those few that may be of benefit. Now, surely you have questions for someone who knows your enemies, who spent millennia with them?"

"I do have one question." He inclined his head slightly, an encouragement. "Why?"

He laughed, and that seemed to surprise her more than anything else had, but how could he not? "Oh, is that all?" Humor remained thread through his voice, lilting across the divide between them. "Which why, Rook? There are many."

"All of it." She spread her arms, encompassing the prison, but he knew she did not mean this cage. "All of it, Dread Wolf. Why?"

"Surely you have been informed," he pointed out, her scoff derisive, sharp. He should be frustrated by it, but instead he found himself oddly pleased. There was something appealing about her sharp edges.

"I would have it from your mouth."

"Simply, it was necessary." She stared at him, clearly waiting for more, but he only met her eyes. Eventually they narrowed. A tension built between them, a thrumming force, exacerbated by the Fade itself. Emotion was powerful here; his own were as leashed as they could be, under the circumstances, but she did not keep hers similarly in check. And she was a mage. The Fade was trying to form around her, tendrils of power invigorated by her intensity. A warning was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back.

And why he held the warning in reserve? Why he did not give voice to caution? It was too plain a reason. Pedestrian. But powerful nevertheless, immensely tempting. It was a distraction. If he was particularly lucky, an opportunity. But he did not suspect anything would come from it, save perhaps a brief antidote to his boredom. Strange, to be bored here. A theater of misery, of despair, and certainly it did elicit such despair often enough. But it gave so little to consider. Reaction, emotion, but no thought. No consideration. No questions.

Calpernia, by contrast, gave rise to countless questions. Her very presence was a puzzle, her entire being a remedy to what ailed him. Even after she left, her presence—however brief—would sustain him. He knew as much from experience. He would ease the ache of boredom (of solitude, of loneliness) with the memory of her existence.

He studied her, analyzed her frustration, and awaited her behavior. He knew he could outlast her. There was no contest; he had existed among immortals. He still measured time differently. To wait years was inconsequential, impatience spanning decades.

Well. Whenever possible, at least. All this? The Evanuris, their cage, his ritual? He had not been able to wait so long. And the rush showed, for despite all his best efforts, all study honed and concentrating on a single moment… he had failed.

He was here.

And he had only one chance.

And she was staring at him.

"You are incredibly frustrating."

His answering grin was sharp, her sigh a stark punctuation.

"You are not the first to say as much," he admitted readily, and her little huff was—

Charming?

That was unfortunate.

He set the thought aside, but he felt it still. It was as a bruise, something with a deep, warm ache that part of him yearned to press his fingers against, to awaken the pain of it in full. But as a bruise, it was easily ignored if one could simply refrain from stimulating it.

Difficult to achieve, given its origin was currently meeting his eyes, but he could—and should, and must—fix his attention upon the moment itself.

He did wonder what answer she sought, though. She was not so foolish as to believe he would tell all simply because she asked. Given her history, he would not put it past her to be doing exactly as he was, trying to trigger reaction to analyze it. But he suspected there was more to it.

"Do you still seek your Tevinter reborn?"

The silence hung heavy between them.

"Do you still seek your world reborn?"

His smile was wan but true. "I desire as much," he answered, if the deflection could be so called. She scoffed, catching the way he didn't answer, as he all but knew she would. Still, it was satisfying.

"Well, I desire information that will help. And it seems you have none."

"On the contrary," he objected idly, something in him delighting at her obvious exasperation. He could not tell it from a fond pleasure or a cruel one, but it did not particularly matter. "Shall I solve it for you, Rook?" He had to fight back a grin as the air seemed to shudder around her, idly wondering if the group she was gathering realized quite how much she struggled with her feelings. It was a surprising trait for a mage.

"Must you toy with me? Is it not enough that I am forced to clean up your mess, I must also amuse you in the doing?" His grin fell away, an avoidance of baring his teeth. She was infuriating.

"My mess? As I recall, Rook, you were the one who brought a statue down on a delicate spell. It is surprising to find a mage so careless." Her eyes flashed with a fury he shared, a sharp burst amidst the thick, soft flow of the Fade.

"To stop you destroying the world!"

"That you might destroy it yourself?"

"I will have my home preserved! Restored!"

"Ah, yes," he threw his arms open extravagantly, "let's fix Tevinter! Surely a magical iron fist is better than a religious one!"

"And what would your world be, Dread Wolf? The iron fist of a spirit? Of the Evanuris? Or perhaps you'd seek a different title. God, perhaps?"

He scoffed, crossing his arms before him. It took a moment to realize he was repeating her stance.

He kept his arms crossed.

"I am no god," he spat, "and you are no saint. You, who commanded the Venatori. You, with the blood they've spilt upon your hands. You, who would see half the world in ashes that your Tevinter may rise."

"You speak from experience, Wolf." It was not a question, and he narrowed his eyes. Her own anger was even more evident, radiating off her in waves, the very fabric of the Fade crackling in proximity to her emotion. "Or did you believe your death toll would have been bloodless? If furious spirits, twisted and enraged, transformed into demons… if they ripped people apart, then it was an accident, is that it?"

"I was—" he cut himself off, the fight going out of him all at once. Suddenly, it all seemed terribly absurd. He wanted to laugh. "There is more blood on my hands than you will ever know," he said at last, watching the anger drain from her just as abruptly. Something in his voice, or perhaps his face, it tore the fight from her. "But, Rook. Calpernia. If you are not wary, there will be more blood on your hands than you can tolerate." He smiled, and felt its grimness himself. "After all, I speak from experience."

She stared at him. Then she drew a hand across her face, and it seemed to him as though she was indicating a veil, a mask. She did not touch her face, did not rub at her eyes, as he had seen others do. As this flesh had prompted him to do to himself. Instead it seemed a gesture, a deliberate restoration of some control.

"I did not come here to fight," she said at length, her hand dropped away, whatever meaning behind it remaining a mystery. "I did not come here at all. You trouble my dreams, Wolf. You make them nightmares, complete with dire warnings. Is your wisdom so callous, that I must debase myself to deserve it? Does the Dread Wolf speak only in riddles, a child's cruel cleverness, preening yourself upon your liar's tongue, never lying?" Her gaze seemed to pin him down. No, it seemed to open him up, and he found that he would have preferred the former. Somehow, she rendered him vulnerable, bare.

"There is no grand mystery," he told her bluntly, when he felt he had found his voice once more. "You face terrible foes. My fault, yours, ours… it changes nothing. I am imprisoned, and you are free. You have the dagger. You have the route. If you do not destroy them, they will destroy you." She did not move, did not respond. He swallowed. "You have found those who would support you. They will be necessary. There is little I can say that will truly prepare you. You might lose some of those who follow you: you know this. You might be killed, yourself: you know this, too. You might succeed, or you might fail. I know your foes better than you do, but I have not known them for centuries, I do not know what they have become in their imprisonment. I can not tell you the breadth of their power, I cannot reveal to you the specifics of their aims, only my interpretations. But you hold me in such doubt, such contempt, that to share my suspicions may cause you to reject them as possibilities outright. I would not soothe my ego by awakening yours. You will have from me what you can ask for, but it is not to toy with you."

"You think," she said coldly, "that my contempt for you is greater than my desire to win? That I would ignore information that might aid me just to spite you?"

"I think," he countered, working to keep his voice even, "that it is a very—forgive me—a very human characteristic."

"Ah." Her voice dripped with palpable deirision. "As opposed to elves? Or is this human as opposed to spirit?"

He threw his arms open once more, frustrated: "both. Either." He sighed, arms dropping to hang limp at his sides. "Or have you never encountered someone unwilling to hear the truth because you are the one speaking it? Have you never been rebuffed by those who reject any lesson they do not come to independently?" That seemed to give her pause, her gaze darting away.

"That, I will concede." Her voice was remarkably soft. He blinked, feeling unbalanced… for it was as though he now saw her in an entirely different light. Had her sharp edges dropped away, or had his sight slipped beneath them, finding a vulnerable core that ought to have been secret? It felt like a violation to witness this, somehow. But he did not look away, as much for selfish reasons as practical ones, and he watched as she considered. Watched as she nodded, apparently to herself, and lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the rocky ledge across from him. "Tell me. I will hear you."

He raised a brow, but did not comment. Instead, after a moment of consideration, he opted to mirror her position. His armor was not terribly conducive to sitting cross-legged, but he did not want to tower over her across the divide as he explained, still not entirely sure it was the right thing to do. "Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain," he began, "are powerful foes, as you are well aware. The Dalish call Elgar'nan the All-Father; in this, they are not wrong, for he was first-born." He shrugged. "So to speak. He was the first to create a body for himself from lyrium. It was…" he hesitated, trying to find a way to describe it accurately, "a tremendous accomplishment. Nothing like it had ever been attempted. Nothing like it had ever been conceptualized."

"You almost sound like you admire him," she pointed out dryly, the comment surprising him. But then he smiled.

"I do not, but I did at the time. I admired such ingenuity." After all, how could he not? "And we did not yet understand the terrible price."

"But surely you knew he made his body from lyrium?"

"From a powerful material found within the earth, yes. But we did not understand what it meant to the Titans, that it connected them."

"Connected?" Her head was tilted, her curiosity evident. His smile was fonder than it ought to be, especially over such a grim topic.

"Yes. The Titans… well," he demurred, "I will not pretend to fully understand them. Lyrium is perceived as their blood: while not a false view, it is a limited one." He held his left arm out, displaying the length of it, as he traced a path from his wrist to his shoulder with his free hand. "In these bodies, blood flows. It functions. As it did within the Titans. But," here he tapped his arm before settling his hands in his lap, lightly clasped, "the role our blood performs is all internal. Yet, many lyrium veins are outside of the Titans. Why do you think that is?"

For a moment, he thought she would press him for the answer. She looked as though she would, impatience tightening her features. But then she seemed to reconsider, her gaze settling in the space between them, although he thought she saw nothing of the Fade now. He noticed then that she worried at her lower lip as she thought, wisely—for once—averting his eyes and his mind from the observation.

"I might assume," her voice came as a surprise, although it should not have; that it did was indicative of how quickly and deeply he had fallen into the trance of his own thoughts, and he resolved then to insist upon an awareness of the moment, "that it has spread beyond them as the result of violence. As though it was spilt and hardened, stone and soil growing up around it until it was buried, becoming a natural part of the earth." He nodded, pleased by her considered response, although perhaps moreso by her willingness. But her gaze hardened, shaking him from this simple pleasure.

"Well reasoned, but not quite. This state is natural. They spread, growing far past the fixed confines of their individual bodies." He looked at her, had been looking at her, watching her face for reaction. As such, he could clearly witness the moment that she understood, but this time restrained himself from showing his satisfaction.

"Then, the lyrium was a part of them, but outside of them… and you spoke of a connection." He nodded, and this time she seemed too engrossed in the considerations to be annoyed by it. "They use it to communicate? Or," she continued before he could say anything, "likely not to communicate as we know it. As we are."

"Quite so."

She seemed to have entirely forgotten—or set aside—her frustration with his praise or acknowledgement. Without it, the atmosphere between them softened somewhat, from a sharp tension to the gentle crush of a page that had been worried overlong.

"Then, to sense, perhaps? Well," here she seemed to gather herself, pulling her wandering mind back to the present, "whatever the… mechanic employed, the result is the same. When you—when the Evanuris—" he did not think her specification was meant to soften his role in it, "took the lyrium, it is possible you stole communication, or part of it, rather than form itself."

"And?" He prompted, wanting to pull her past that particular conclusion. It unduly gentled what they had done, as if their crime was lessened that they did not cut into flesh, rather committing a crime far more abstract.

"And…" she hesitated, and he did not know her enough to parse uncertainty from care. "The lyrium that was taken, it was not cut out of beings. It was of them, but not in a way that you recognized." She searched his face, and apparently found her confirmation within it, for she nodded slightly. "You admired him when you thought he did something admirable with a… a component, I suppose. A mineral."

"Yes."

"When did you learn it was something much more?"

"I should have realized upon his emergence, as they earth seemed to shudder with what he did, but it was not the first time I had seen such shaking. But upon Mythal's emergence and the repetition I was convinced it was something dangerous, and I hesitated to take a form of my own. When I did, the shaking came again, but this time I felt it."

"You don't mean the trembling," she pointed out, and he could feel how tight his smile was.

"No. I felt that, too, of course, but what I felt was… them. I did not know them, but I felt them. It was…" there was a growing frustration in him as he struggled to explain. "Have you ever been preoccupied, but suddenly drawn to the present because you feel watched? It was akin to that. I felt a stirring as of a slow waking, a discordant pressure that I struggled to witness, disoriented as I was."

"You stole their voice," she said, and the simplicity of the statement was devastating in its accuracy. "You stole their voice, and you wore it as flesh."

"Yes." He could say no more. He could barely say that.

For a time, there was a silence between them. But even around the old despair this conversation had awoken, a sediment that her careful steps into his world stirred, he recognized the comfort of this silence. Not that it was a comfortable silence, but there was a comfort within it. It was the absence of isolation, he knew. Could not fail to know.

Here, in this bitter prison he had built, he was never alone. Never alone. Haunted by memory made manifest, haunted by his ghosts except that they could touch him, could stare at him, plead with choked voices he'd thought forgotten. Wished forgotten. Mourned that they were forgotten… mourned, now, that they were remembered, pulled whole out of some deep pit within him and strung up like a macabre play of every single thing he had ever done wrong. But none of the specters were a true presence, and even with all the weight strung between himself and Calpernia, even with her caution and her contempt and her frustrated anger, she was real. She was a pulse in this pulseless place.

As absurd as it was, he did try to not think about it. To not think about how she—and she alone—alleviated his isolation. How eager he was for these times, and how much deeper his loneliness felt after she left, the Fade echoing with her presence. Like a scent, suspended in the air and stirring deep memory, a nostalgic despair for something only moments past.

In the lingering silence, he found he could think of nothing else.

He knew better. He did. It was more than foolish, it was the height of folly. As if he had made some sick game out of always finding the worst path forward. But knowledge and emotion, they were separate forces. They wove together, of course, waxed and waned together, breathed and bled together, but they were separate. And logic could not bury emotion, try as it may.

He knew her face. He knew her eyes. He knew the way she held herself, the way she carried herself, the gap in her smile that filled him with such raw tenderness…

The height of folly, indeed.

Within him, sour in his throat, were bubbling cruelties. Ways he could wound her, could drive her away, could make her leave. She would return, of course, but he could make those experiences brief. Ever the bare minimum.

As his mouth opened, cruelty and kindness warred, and out slipped—

A hum. A single, soft, thoughtful noise, the kind of considering sound he had made often in his life. Was it habit, then, that gentled his response? Was it uncertainty? Or was it simply that he…

That he wished to continue?

She was focused on him, drawn to him… No, he chided himself. No, not that. What else would she be drawn to, in this place? Her focus was practical, and he must be practical in turn. She had come to him, not for the pleasure of his company, but for information. Such information as she would need to do what must be done. And it was a bitter thing, that; each aid provided would push her towards the great cruelty he would have to enact. It soured his mood, soured even the familiar desire to share, but he had done grim tasks many times before. This would be no different.

"The Evanuris," he continued, as if there had been no pause, no disruption, no cloying doubt, "are skilled, powerful, and they have been Blighted. The Blight they wield is an ancient thing, perhaps…" he paused, considering. "Perhaps primordial, in its way. The Blight that these lands have faced is something changed by time and in many ways dulled, but what Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain bring is strong and violent. It has an innate power, a consumptive hunger, even greater than the Blights you know. You have seen the effects of it already, but there will be more ahead."

"I know," she said, and he had to resist smirking. She did not know, could not know, not truly. But he was aware that wasn't what she meant, just an acknowledgement that she would face the Blight again. "It is why we approached the Wardens."

We. That was interesting, although after a moment, he decided it was not surprising.

"You were wise to do so," he agreed, allowing her to interpret the 'you' as she would; herself, or the group she had gathered around her. "But you will need more than the Wardens and their knowledge." He thought of Scout Harding. Thought of the pulse he had felt richochet throughout the Fade, something he at first found unfamiliar, before realizing it was such an ancient familiarity that he had all but forgotten. He did not know that it was her, but it stood to reason. He said none of this, only hoping that Calpernia would understand that this connection to ancient dwarven magic may be what turns the tide. The Evanuris were familiar with it, of course, but they would not have planned for it, would not have expected it.

And yet, that may be the lesser benefit.

The Blight was born of the Titans themselves. Sundered from themselves, enraged and wounded, a twisted connection had been formed. One unexpected consequence of many. He could not say what Harding's awakening may do to the Blight, or to the Titans themselves, or even if it would have any impact at all. He did not know. But it seemed unlikely that nothing would come of it, whether risk or boon. He wanted—no, he needed—Calpernia to be prepared.

"What more?"

"Anything," he answered in the same open-ended manner she had asked. "Everything. Whatever knowledge you can find, from whatever source. Although…" he smirked, and she glared, "I need not tell you to be cautious. Hear what it said, know it, but do not trust it."

"You're right," she said icily, "you do not need to tell me that, Fen'Harel."

There was a small surge in him. He thought it anger, for a moment, but… no, not anger, but something that was kin to it. When he realized, it did not come as a surprise, although a part of him wished it had.

He was not angry: he was eager, engaged, wanting to dig in, to argue with her more. He was enjoying it. Enjoying the sharp, biting back-and-forth, enjoying the hard edges of her frustration, enjoying the way it sparked in her eyes. She was a bright flame here, a stark contrast to his low burn, and he wanted to bask in that warmth.

Selfish. Irresponsible. Foolish. Foolish above all. Wisdom, the eternal fool. None of that came as a surprise, either.

He felt the tug as she began to ease towards consciousness, something growing painfully tight in his stomach, mourning the loss of it. Of this. But he could not let his anticipatory grief be known. "Eyes open, Calpernia," he said simply, smiling at her.

She gave him a strange look. A searching one, although that was not the strange aspect. No, it was that it seemed… almost wistful. Before he could crush the thought, it rose in him, a treacherous rush of hope: she wanted to stay as he wanted her to stay.

Wisdom, the eternal fool, indeed.

He blinked, and just like that, she was gone. Just like that, he was alone.

He ignored the press of ghosts, their thin, fractured voices an attempted denial.