Disclaimer:
Dragon Age, all characters and other, related indica are © to BioWare. No profit made, no infringement intended.
Chapter warnings:
For angst.
Enjoy.
So the Moon Trembles
In Fear
Time, Josephine learned long ago, is a fickle thing. Often it moves entirely too fast, while at other times, it slows to such a crawl that the sun itself actually seems to move backwards in its steady path across the sky. Other times again it appears to freeze entirely, and right in this moment – which, in her opinion, has lasted at least a year – she swears that not a leaf has stirred since she lost sight of the small party of horses heading for the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Or what remains of it, beneath the second breach in the sky.
(There had been another moment before that; an endless one captured in a single glance directly into her soul from over a shoulder covered in gleaming metal. It had been as blue as ice and yet filled with a dozen kinds of warmth; it had been a glance meant to reassure.
It hadn't worked.)
As a diplomat by trade, patience is most assuredly one of Josephine's strongest suits. And yet, in spite of having no shortage of tasks to throw herself into (Skyhold is still bustling with activity since only a handful of people had left, but it is a heavy, oppressive bustle, filled with hesitant looks upwards and questions that are never fully asked), she is feeling decidedly restless.
It seems, at least, to be a recurring theme among the inner circle. Commander Cullen has inspected the remaining soldiers three times in the past two hours. Leliana has taken to wandering the battlements rather than wait for her birds at the top of the tower. Blackwall practically has his head buried in his woodworkings, Iron Bull is having Varric beat him about the head with a staff under Cole's curious gaze, and while she isn't quite sure exactly what Vivienne and Solas are up to, Josephine is reasonably certain that it is the most intense session of reading that she herself has ever seen.
Everyone is preparing; ostensibly for victory – for a celebration – but also, beneath the not-so-hidden buzz of anxiety, they are preparing for the worst. For the Inquisitor to fail, for Corypheus to appear while their armies are still marching, and for the world to be swallowed up by darkness.
Josephine has ordered the supplies for the celebration days in advance, and today (when it was a choice between her working or her locking Ellana up some place safe and damn the consequences) she has requested their kitchen staff to pull out all the stops and prepare a feast fit for kings. The smells that waft along the castle halls are delicious, and yet nothing about them can entice her unusually acrobatic stomach into considering even the smallest bite of food.
Now, she walks across the high path to Cullen's quarters (there are news regarding the returning armies; not important ones, but it's better than sitting behind her desk and not thinking), and she is halfway there and directly above the uneasily shifting crowd when she hears the cry.
"Look!"
Josephine's insides lurch uncomfortably, and only repeat the motion when that first cry is followed by more; by gasps and the sight of bodies freezing as they stare at the skies. Somewhere ahead of her, a heavy door slams into stone with a bang that whisks away on the breeze, and she doesn't want to look but she has to, so she tells herself that the breach is sealed; that a wall of light is coming at them, exactly like the first time. That all is well.
Massive chunks of the earth and the mountains are floating into the heavens, and even from here, she can see the eerie flashes of green light. Somewhere below her, a child starts crying, and all is most certainly not well.
Troop movements. Josephine looks away and resumes walking; one hand curling much too tightly around the message in her grasp and her nails biting into her palm. Letters, preparations, action. Of any kind.
Don't think. Just do.
xXxXx
Leliana has moved into Josephine's office. It's easier this way, she says, for the two of them to work together when they don't have to trot up and down the stairs in order to do so. Josephine knows the real reason, of course, but doesn't question it. Leliana is protective – even more so now – and she is honestly glad of the extra hum of activity. Of the additional distraction from the silence.
Her work is too easy and demands entirely too little thought on her part. It comes naturally to her; as natural as how her lungs move to take in breath without prodding, and as natural as how Ellana's fingers fit between h-
Maker. Her fingers clench around the pen, and this time she does have to remind herself to breathe. The language of Orlais fills the paper in front of her, but the words and letters swim before her eyes, and she forgets what the point of this missive even was long before the ink drips from her pen and spatters across the neat writing.
Like a drop of blood, she thinks. Or a tear.
"I think I could do with some air," Leliana says, and Josephine jolts from her thoughts to see the paper pushed aside and the spymaster standing before her. "Care to join me?"
There were scouts in here just seconds ago, weren't there? Where did they go?
"Josie?"
Leliana is shielding the sofa from her sight, but only partially, and while it isn't the right sofa, she hasn't been able to even glance in the direction of the Inquisitor's quarters.
"Perhaps I should have composed a ballad, then. Or sent roses."
"Yes," she decides, before she can sink too far into thoughts of that gentle, exasperated look, or wonder if she'll have the chance to see it again. "Some fresh air would be nice."
They avoid the garden entirely, but they do spend an inordinate amount of time in the chapel.
xXxXx
Skyhold is entirely too quiet when Inquisitor Lavellan is out. It's an odd idea, to say the least; Ellana never takes more than three or four people with her when she leaves, and yet, the ancient castle seems to hold its breath from the moment she exits the gates until her footsteps carry her up the stairs to the great hall once more. They're such distinctive footsteps, too, Josephine has learned after many a time spent listening to them pace around her office. They're light, which isn't surprising given the Inquisitor's slight build, and a cross – somehow – between Leliana's near-silent tread and Cullen's striding march; soft, but full of purpose.
Ellana isn't a noisy person (except for those few times with Sera; Josephine's clothes took ages to dry out, but it was impossible to stay angry when faced with those pale eyes and the playful spark in them). In fact, she would go so far as to call her the opposite. Her breathing is almost completely silent, and even her voice is generally low and soft in ways entirely disproportionate to the weight her words carry when she chooses to use them.
So it isn't the lack of noise that makes Skyhold feel so still, but rather the lack of presence. Even after a bare day.
Josephine holds the image of armor and torchlight and blue eyes closer than she can ever remember holding any memory before. She cradles the remembered feel of warm skin, the scent of vandal arias hidden beneath the burning pitch, the faint touch of a kiss to her palm and the small smile cast half in shifting shadows as they found some measure of privacy behind a wall.
"I'll be back before you know it."
She's going to have to scold her for such a blatant lie. If she gets the chance to.
"Sister Nightingale!" Hard, hurried steps pound against the stone, and even through the thickness of the closed door, the call is audible. Leliana is on her feet and halfway across the room in the blink of an eye, and Josephine herself is up and around the desk before she realizes it.
"It's fortunate that we aren't running a stealth operation at this time," Leliana tells the scout pointedly when the door swings open, and leans against a pillar on one shoulder. "By now, I doubt there's a soul in Skyhold who doesn't realize that there are news."
News. Mostly, it feels as if there's not enough air in the room, but that can't be right.
The scout flushes abruptly and bends her neck; offering up a narrow, tiny roll of paper in one hand. "Forgive me, Sister. It won't happen again."
There is a tension in Leliana's shoulders that Josephine knows well; one of reprimand and discipline, for although the scout is young – barely a woman at all – there are things that even the least experienced of them must know. Still, there is a moment where the spymaster looks back and their eyes meet, and then... a shift. A change, subtly, in Leliana's eyes, and the tension dissipates in a sigh.
"See to it that it doesn't," she says instead, and dismisses the scout with a wave of her hand. In her other hand, of course, is the message, and all Josephine can think of is that the paper looks inordinately tiny for all the weight it's placing on her chest.
Breathing is very difficult.
"Here." A hand in her view, and – when she looks up in confusion – a bare, fond roll of Leliana's eyes. "Read it," the spymaster tells her, and carefully places the small, unopened missive in Josephine's hand. "You're making my guts ache just from looking at you."
News. What kind, she wonders, and picks at the thread holding the rolled paper closed with trembling fingers. She hears the whispers in the corners of Skyhold; hears the murmurs of how this started with a sacrifice, so why shouldn't it end with one? The Herald already cheated death so many times, and how can anyone keep doing so in the face of those odds?
Briefly, Josephine wonders if she'll unravel before the paper does. It's close.
Her hands are shaking too much for her to be able to read the message, so Leliana ends up gently prying it from her fingers. Josephine thinks it gentle, anyway, but the only thing that truly resounds in her mind with any sort of clarity is how thoroughly unable she is to think at all, because there are too many thoughts; too many fears and hopes and terrors at what that innocuous piece of paper might contain.
She's alive. She's dead. They're coming – run. I love you – see you soon.
"Josie." It takes the hand on her shoulder to make her realize that she's shaking all over, and she spends several frozen moments wondering why Leliana's face is nothing but a washed-out blur of colors before it hits her that she's crying. "It's alright." The hand on her shoulder becomes a secure arm around her back, and there's another hand gently wiping at her eyes before it moves to hold the message up in front of her instead. "Just read it."
The paper isn't shaking and her vision – for the time being – isn't blurring, so she does, and then Leliana's support is the only thing keeping her upright.
Antivans are a passionate race, her mother would always say, and therefore also an emotional one. Doubly so when they're trying their hardest to be anything but.
The Inquisitor lives. Corypheus does not. On our way home.
- Harding