A is for Adrift
-adj., adv.
floating without control; drifting; not anchored or moored
The ship is not a ship. The Blight has not happened. Carver is not dead. She has merely spun in place on a dare and has ended up dizzy in the grass with the world endlessly spinning.
"Calenhad," says Bethany.
"Denerim," Marian answers. They might as well be waiting out the burning midday sun in the tall grass of the Lothering fields.
"Mabari."
"Impotent."
"Marian, pay attention." Bethany's voice is gentle, a terrible contrast to the hold's constant creaks and groans. The ship is, after all, a ship. Bethany adds, "You're the one who wanted to play the history version."
She opens her eyes to look at her sister, who is busy picking at a dirt spot on her knee. Beside Bethany, their mother stares off into the close, stuffy gloom. She hasn't spoken much since they boarded; just keeps rubbing the palm of her left hand with her right thumb. It has become raw, but she doesn't seem to care. Aveline, too, is silent. All around them refugees like themselves are huddled into each other with identical distant expressions, all of them terrified, dirty, lost. The Blight has indeed happened, and there's no assurance Kirkwall will be safe. With the alchemy of her willpower she transmutes a mounting scream into a soft sigh. "Ishale," she says.
"Eamon."
Not my brother. Not fair. Not this. "Nevarra."
"Andraste."
"Bethany, let's take a break. I need air." She doesn't wait for her sister's reply, but stands on shaky legs and picks her way to the rickety steps that lead to the deck. No one bothers to move aside. Two weeks in their journey, and she's been the only one to climb to the deck every few hours. They're used to her restlessness by now, or maybe they simply don't care.
Outside the air is briny and warm. As sea birds shrill like lost souls overhead, she beholds Kirkwall's towering cliffs, jutting dark and forbidding straight out of the water. Enormous statues mounted into the jagged rock face cover their faces in eternal sorrow as they flank the ship's passage, their bronze oil-dark with time and weather. She momentarily feels exactly as their builders must have intended: a speck, nothing, a mere mote of flesh adrift at the mercy of fate. But no. She'd be betraying everything that brought her here if she became a slave to despair.
She imitates Carver's stance as it had been in his last moments of life, teeth gritted, shoulders squared, feet planted. What was it the dragon witch said? Something about ledges and jumping. Well, even on a steep precipice, a fight may be waiting. Standing on the deck of a ship fleeing the Blight, she turns her gaze ahead to the City of Chains. She is ready to leap.