.
The Other One
II.
The city of chains rises out of the sea like a beacon, its ivory towers reaching toward the slate sky like the hands of an expectant child to an indifferent father; the Maker's gaze has never fallen on Kirkwall as it wallows in corruption and darkness, and it never will. Carver's faith has always been lacking, shaken long before his life had wound its twisted way toward Kirkwall, and the thought of the Maker's absence here does not put the fear and shame into him as it once might have done. Miserable with fatigue and cold, Carver presses on, and he spares not a moment to mourn the loss of his innocence and his faith.
The city gates are open wide and no one stops him as he passes through; a Grey Warden still casts a daunting shadow even now with the Blight from across the sea five years a memory, and it's his memories that push him forward and his memories that will him to turn back. Kirkwall is much as he remembers it, and this angers him to no end. He cannot be sad for this city. He is loathe to call this place his home, but all that remains of his family, his childhood, of his life before the Wardens is here, and as much as he wants to forget all they are to him, he cannot untangle himself so readily from the ties that bind. The streets are as familiar to him as the lines of his hands, as the scars on his skin that have all but become a part of him.
He has no difficulty finding his way to his sister's grand estate; his mother had pointed it out to him often enough during his short time here, Leandra finding any excuse to walk by when he'd taken her to market, her gentle hand upon his arm as they had idly shopped for things they could not afford.
Thinking of his mother, of what was, of what should have been, drives his steps faster, and sets his heart to pounding achingly in his throat. If his blinding fury does not force him forward, he worries he may just turn around and flee like the coward he fears himself to be.
The dooryard of his sister's house is blanketed with snow; no one has been out to sweep the steps in days, no one has come or gone. The Amell crest is all but disappeared beneath a veil of white; he swipes at it with a gloved hand, and the snow falls like sugar, swirling in the wind. He fords a drift that buries him almost to the tops of his boots and bangs unceremoniously on the door. At first, he is greeted with only silence. The passersby on the street watch him, shameless in their curiosity. In the dead of winter, even Hightown is starved for its entertainments, and he supposes a Grey Warden hammering on the front door of the upstart in their midst is too much for the likes of them. There will be talk. He regrets his rashness then, wishing he'd waited until after dark, but there is no time for such misgivings because soft footsteps sound from within and then the door is open and there is no turning back.
"May I help you, messere?"
The girl is elven, slight and frail and pale as a ghost, and she peers up at him through the gap in the door with the greenest, most trusting eyes he's ever seen. The sight of her is so unfamiliar, so unexpected that he forgets himself, forgets the ugliness and uncertainty that brought him here, and he's left stammering on the doorstep like a fool. The girl watches him with a bemused expression on her face; she's indecisive, he can tell, and she's beginning to fret at just what to do about him when a voice calls from behind her.
"No, no, tell whoever it is that we're not buying anything today, the mistress is not well. Close the door, Orana, and be done with it."
The girl makes to do as she's told and shut the door in his face but Carver puts a hand out, braces his arm and stops her, finally finding his way past the knot in his tongue. "I'm not selling anything," he says forcefully, and gives the door a bit of a push. "I've come to see my sister, damn it, now let me in." The girl jumps back and the door swings inward and Carver is left staring at the two of them there in the dimly lit entrance hall, a timid elf and an obstinate ginger dwarf, neither of whom he's ever seen before, neither of whom look like they belong. Their presence does not surprise him. Marian's always had a knack for disregarding convention.
"Sister?" the dwarf exclaims, his eyes going wide. "Master Carver, of course, of course! The good captain told us to expect you. And expect you we did, though it was somewhat sooner we had thought you'd be joining us. In fact, we were beginning to think you'd not come at all."
"Well, I'm here. Where is she?" Carver asks, taking off his gloves and flexing his frozen fingers. The elven girl has the gloves out of his hands before he can blink, flitting forward like a bird hopping about in the garden of a morning. He ignores her as best he can, looking past her into the parlour, where firelight dances on a plush red carpet. He half expects his sister to come out then, that blasted beast of a mabari bounding at her heels; Marian Hawke, the purveyor of dramatic entrances. "Marian!" he calls out, his irritation growing with every beat of his heart, with her absence, with her silence. "Sister!"
"Hush now, messere, be silent, I beg you," the dwarf says, holding up his hands. "My dear and poor mistress is not up to visitors. I've turned so many away–"
"What do you mean?" Carver snaps. The servant girl quails at the edge in his voice. "What's wrong with her?"
The dwarf looks distinctly uncomfortable, and wrings his hands together. "You've not spoken with the captain? Oh dear, she assured me – I'm at a loss, messere, I'd not expected to be the one to bear such grave tidings, and to a Grey Warden–"
Carver draws himself up. "Where is my sister?" he asks again, in a tone that brooks no argument. The dwarf flinches, but his hands drop to his side, and he shakes his head.
"Bedridden with guilt and grief," he says, his sorrow clear and sharp. "She sees no one. She rarely leaves her bedchamber. She eats little, does naught but sleep, messere, and her waking hours are consumed with weeping and darkness. This is why the captain sent for you. Did she not tell you in her letter?"
Carver is dumbstruck with the news, and it takes him a long moment to recover, his vision shifting in and out of focus as he stares into the parlour, the stone stairs that lead upward into deep, abiding shadows like draping cobwebs. "I didn't realize it was as bad as all that," he says, but even as the words leave him, he knows it for a lie. He had known. He'd known and refused to believe and now he'll pay for it and dearly, blundering blustering fool that he is. "It's been weeks since Mother–" He stops, unable to finish, unable to say...
"Six weeks," says the dwarf, his voice heavy with his own mourning, "six weeks and four days." Behind him, the girl gives an sniff into the back of her hand, excuses herself, and disappears through the doorway. The dwarf pays her no mind, and sighs. "Is there anything I can do for you, messere? There is a room prepared. As I said, we've been expecting you."
Carver shakes his head, numb with worry and doubt. He should not be here; he should not have come. Yet here he is, standing in her entrance hall and talking to her servants, knowing that she rests above him, lost and broken and entirely alone. The others should be here with dice and cards and wine, with stories and laughter and everything else they can give her and he cannot. The bloody elf should be here, like some damn avenging grace, to keep her and protect her as he has vowed to do.
It shouldn't be him left to clean up this mess.
It should never be him.
Carver puts a hand to his forehead to hide his traitorous eyes behind splayed fingers, to shield the welling of tears he cannot fight from those he does not trust to see his weakness. He is too weary, too broken himself, and there are long days ahead, and never-ending nights. There is no hope for either of them, brother and sister both, and he does not know if he can pick up the pieces when he does not care if they ever come back together again. He is not ready yet. By the Maker, why did he come?
"I'd best go see Aveline," he finally says with a sigh he hopes will take all the breath from him, end his existence and relieve him of his charge, but his body betrays him, and he breathes on and on and on. He tries to calm himself, gentle the storm that roils inside him; a lost cause if ever there was one. "Let her know I've come, and that I'll be back."
"Of course, messere," the dwarf says with a short bow. "Anything, anything."
Without another word, Carver leaves the estate, letting the door fall closed on the home he was never meant to know, and hurries out into the snow, rushing away from the suffocating pain caused by his last burden in this world, a sister so selfless, so selfish as to put all the world before her; a sister who is willing to save everyone but herself.