-2-
Blackwall should have seen this fucking coming.
Barely one day out, and already someone decided to seek out their own revenge. But Blackwall shouldn't have been surprised that there were those who saw Ellana's judgment as insufficient punishment. He should have been hanging by a noose by now. It was what he deserved. He didn't deserve to walk as a free man.
He especially didn't deserve to be sitting back in the loft, Ellana treating him after the fight with the chevalier who attacked him. It was as if nothing had changed, her dabbing at his wounds with such care, such gentleness. But it was an illusion. Everything had changed. And just because Ellana had, to his astonishment, taken him back, it didn't mean things would go back to the way they used to, that things would be easier.
"Fortunately, the cut on your cheek didn't reopen. Probably still be swelling around it, though."
"It's alright, my lady. I can take a punch or two." He wouldn't say it had been more than that. But it had become a familiar feeling to him over the years, the slight pounding in his face, of swollen cheeks and healing cuts and scrapes on his face. It was truly nothing new to him.
She looked at him, her eyes analyzing him in the way she did when searching for further injuries. "No pain or discomfort anywhere else?"
Blackwall shook his head. That bastard chevalier had gotten a few lucky hits to the gut, but they'd just left him momentarily winded. No permanent damage. A major boon to having his gambeson on, to help curb the punches' impact. "None elsewhere."
Ellana nodded, seemingly satisfied with that, then dunked the rag she'd been using to clean his face back into the wet bucket. As she slowly wrung the rag out, her face shifted, glancing up at him with a question in her eyes.
He grimaced when Ellana dabbed at a scrape on his left cheek. As she continued, she asked softly, "How badly did they treat you? In the prison?"
Blackwall had to look away, glancing out the opening of the barn, not trusting himself to prevent becoming overwhelmed by the concern in her voice and eyes. "Nothing less than I expected."
It didn't take long for the guards, even some of the prisoners, to gang up on him. The fist-fights and beatings. As the days passed, he came to wish more and more for his end, wondering if the Orlesians' plan was to torture him for weeks before they granted him a release into the Void. Then he found out, from one of the guards. Not directly -the sadistic bastards would never bother to tell him anything useful- but overhearing a conversation between two of them as they made their rounds. Both barely able to hide their disgust that the lady Josephine was there on the Inquisitor's behalf to negotiate terms of release into Inquisition custody.
He couldn't believe it. Only when Inquisition soldiers appeared at his cell, informing him that he was to be escorted back to Skyhold for pending judgment, did he realize the lengths to which Ellana would go to save him from a traitor's death. One that he fully deserved. One that he'd wanted.
"And the Inquisition soldiers who retrieved you? They didn't do anything to you, did they?"
The cool, damp cloth against his face brought him back from those dark thoughts. "Roughed me up a bit." Nothing so harsh as the Orlesian guards, but the Inquisition ones weren't exactly gentle handling him in and out of the cell. Blackwall wouldn't pretend that didn't hurt, that soldiers he'd recognized fighting alongside at Adamant treated him like a criminal. But he found no reason to protest about it, as he wouldn't have an ally in the Commander anyway. The look of disgust he'd given Blackwall on the way to the main hall hadn't escaped his notice.
"I'll talk to Cullen about this," she said, her mouth set in a firm line.
Blackwall shook his head. "You don't have to, it's…" He trailed off, wanting to say "nothing I don't deserve," but he had already tried saying it earlier. And if the sudden warning look in Ellana's eyes was any indication, the attempt would not be well-received a second time, either.
"I won't have anyone under my banner treating people like that, regardless of their crimes."
They fell silent as she resumed her treatments. He'd never minded it before, always content to be in her presence, regardless if words were shared or not. Holding her close in his arms, her face pressed against his neck. Or his head resting in her lap, as her willowy fingers weaved through his hair and beard. But this silence was an uncomfortable one, air stifling with tension, of the issues he had created between them once he had stolen away in the night all those weeks ago.
The evidence of which could plainly be seen on Ellana herself. He'd hoped he was mistaken when he saw her the day before, that it had just been a trick of the light. But she indeed look haggard, with pronounced circles under her eyes, and gaunter in the face. Blackwall could only guess how much she actually ate and slept in the time since Val Royeaux.
"I suppose I should thank you. For coming by when you did. And for…everything."
The words felt off on his tongue, as if he was saying words he felt he needed to, that he didn't really mean. And by the frown on Ellana's face, she could tell too. "You don't need to." She reached down for the mortar with crushed elfroot paste, dabbing some on the tips of two fingers. "Here, let me see your lip again."
Blackwall compiled, catching smell of the minty odor of the paste, only letting out a small grunt at the sting of it on his wound.
"Abelas." Ellana gently rubbed the paste in. "I wish you wouldn't act like that."
He was forced to wait until she had finished her work. "Like what?"
"Like you shouldn't have anyone supporting you, advocating for you. I made my choice, and people need to respect it, not try and hurt you."
Blackwall shouldn't have been surprised at that. She always thought he'd been too hard on himself. But that was before she knew. It remained impossible for him to comprehend that she set him free without any real sentence, and he couldn't describe the feelings of ranging emotions of disbelief and anger that went through him at the verdict.
"Just because you feel I shouldn't be punished doesn't mean I don't deserve it." The words escaped him in a harsh breath, but he wouldn't take them back. It was strange to be so open about his feelings of guilt, when he had been so closed off about them with her for so long. He didn't know whether he should feel relief or a sense of fatigue at now having to face what he was rather than hiding it away.
Her hands paused for the slightest moment before she set down the paste beside her. Then she glanced over at him, sadness filling her eyes. He hated seeing it; he especially hated seeing it when he was the cause of it. Her mouth shifted, looking like she was about to say something, but no words followed. Instead, she reached for a clean rag, gingerly dabbing it across his face.
"There," Ellana said with a sigh once she finished. "That should take care of the worst of it."
"Thank you, my lady." Normally he'd follow his appreciation of treating his wounds with a kiss, but he didn't want to presume. They hadn't shared another since the day before, and there was still a formality between them that hadn't been there since the early days of Haven. She should be the one to take the lead, not him.
Ellana nodded, but didn't say in anything in reply. The uncomfortable silence between them was back, with Ellana playing with the cloth in her hands and Blackwall shifting awkwardly against the hay.
Maker, he was absolutely fucking clueless on what to do, how to go about making things right. Everything had seemed so clear, when Blackwall had declared his love for her in the main hall. But now, faced with the chance to begin making his amends… he had no idea what to say.
Fortunately, he wasn't the only one, with Ellana admitting softly, "I don't know where to start with this."
"I don't either," he said, finding some solace in her feeling as lost as he was on where to begin.
They hadn't said much the day before, when Ellana came back. Only questions about how he met the real Blackwall and the Wardens. Ending with the question of what everyone should call him.
Blackwall asked to still go by that name, to treat as a title like Inquisitor, give him something to work towards. To his relief, she agreed, but unease immediately followed when she requested in return to call him Thom when they were alone. Blackwall was reluctant. He'd spent so long shunning that name, trying to separate himself from it and the terrible actions committed under it. But he knew she'd set him free on the condition that he atone as Thom Rainier, whoever he was, not Blackwall. And he didn't have any real grounds to refuse being called that name, not after what he'd put her through.
"I'm still angry," she said, a steely edge in her voice
"I know," he said with acceptance. He was amazed that she wasn't angrier, what he had been picturing the entire journey back to Skyhold. "For what it's worth, I'm…" He swallowed, a sudden lump in his throat. "I'm sorry."
Blackwall knew it wouldn't be as simple as saying those two words, but he figured they wouldn't hurt.
Her hands stilled. Then with a tired sigh, she stood up off the hay and journeyed over to the other side of the loft, standing over the spot where they had last slept together, where he had left her that night. Just as he had felt more on solid ground, he could feel himself slipping off the longer time ticked by with her silence.
As he debated whether to stay still or to join her, she said in the faintest of voices that Blackwall had to strain to hear, "I knew something was wrong the moment I saw that badge."
He froze, fearing what her next words would be, whether she'd suddenly realized what a bastard he actually was.
"I could sense you were troubled, but it wasn't until I saw the badge that I really…then I saw the note. I feared you'd gone off to your Calling, even though you promised you'd tell me."
The words seemed flat, but Blackwall knew Ellana well enough by now to know when she was trying to sound unemotional and diplomatic when she was feeling anything but. Excuses and professions swirled in his head, of conveying that he didn't want to leave her, didn't want to hurt her, but all of them sounded absolutely hollow, even in his head. So he chose to stay silent.
"Then one of Leliana's scouts showed me the report you had about Mornay. I suspected it was someone you knew in your past, but I never thought-"
"You never thought I was a murderer of children?" he finished darkly for her, unable to keep quiet.
She turned to face him, gaze intently on him. "You didn't tell me, why you didn't stop, when you saw they were there."
"I had the chance to, but I didn't take it. I didn't want my men to find out the truth. That I used them to line my own pockets." He buried his head into his hand, unable to bear looking at her, the terrified faces of those children flashing before his eyes. "That's all it was ever about. Respected captain in the Orlesian army, and it was still not enough."
He could remember the moment he reported to Ser Robert's contact that the job was done, the sack of coins placed into his hand. For the first time, he truly felt the weight of the gold he had taken. Yet even then he still didn't do the honorable thing and turn himself in, still valuing his own skin over others. He fled the moment word got out about the massacre, before anyone could come looking for him. Leaving everything behind but his sword and those blood-soaked coins. Coins that would quickly be spent on booking passage elsewhere, and between drinks and trips to the brothel. All in a vain attempt to hide and forget.
He let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "I'm still that selfish, fucking coward. I knew you deserved to know; I knew you deserved better. But I didn't want to lose you."
Blackwall heard her light as air footsteps approach him, the shuffling of the hay as she sat back down beside him. Then he felt her hand on his forearm.
"You should have let me decide that," she said, gentle yet firm.
"I feared what you would've decided," he admitted, forcing himself to glance up at her. But he found no judgment in her eyes, no heated anger or disgust. And it both soothed and hurt to see.
"I'll admit, it would've been hard." Her hand fell back to her side. "It was, when I found out."
"So why did you fight so hard for me?"
"Because you're not that same man anymore. You did a terrible thing, Thom." He couldn't hide the wince at hearing her speak his true name. "I can't forgive you for that. Only you can."
She reached her hand out, caressing his face with such tenderness that his eyes closed at her touch, as healing as her actual treatment. "But I can for the rest."
He took a shuddering breath. "I don't deserve your…"
Ellana placed a finger on his lips. "It's mine to give. As is my love, whether you think it's deserved or not."
She made it sound so simple, but he had spent so long feeling unworthy of such affection and devotion, even while they were together. It was hard to start believing otherwise.
Overcome with the knowledge that he was to spend the rest of his days seeking atonement, he dared to press his brow against hers. And to his relief, she didn't pull away.
"Ana…" His petname for her escaped him in a ragged, broken whisper.
She grabbed for his hands, cradling them in hers. "Ar lath ma, vhenan."
And he answered by clutching her hands, and her soft declaration, like a drowning man trying to stay afloat and holding onto the one thing that would keep him from sinking into the dark abyss.
"I love you, too," he said, his voice just as quiet as hers.
Blackwall would have been content to stay like this longer, if his stomach hadn't decided to interrupt with a loud grumble.
"Suppose I should find some breakfast," he said with a sheepish smile, a slight chuckle in his voice.
He hadn't actively thought about food for the past few weeks. Anything that he'd eaten in the prison were practically scraps or, more often than not, had some kind of mold growing on it. But Blackwall remembered Ellana saying something about going out to the Exalted Plains soon, and wanting him to come along. It heartened Blackwall that she still trusted him to watch her back out in the field. The least he could do was regain some weight and strength he lost, and try to be in the best shape he could be.
"They were starting to set things out when I passed through. They should be done by now."
But Blackwall shook his head, dread filling him at facing the crowd that came with the breakfast hour. "I don't think it's wise for me to join you. Not yet." It's why he hadn't gone to supper the night before. He hadn't wanted scowling faces and piercing eyes staring at him as he picked at his mutton.
He caught Ellana's slight frown, and he braced for her argument. But her face slackened and her eyes softened, understanding filling them.
"I'll go, then, and bring something back. We can talk some more after."
Blackwall took one of their joined hands and kissed the back of hers, like he had done so many times before.
"Thank you, my lady," he said, grateful she wasn't pushing the issue.
A small smile appeared on her face, a bit stronger than the one she'd given him the day before at his judgment. She stood up, but not before briefly brushing her lips against his brow. "I'll be back, vhenan."
He still didn't know what a wretch like him had done to deserve a blessing such as her. He probably never would.
But as he watched Ellana head down the stairs, he swore to make every effort to be worthy of it, that she would never have to doubt his place by her side again.