disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: sweaters and black tea.
notes: HONEY IM HOME
title: i shone the sun into your eyes
summary: In which Lady Elissa Cousland marries King Cailan Theirin, and history as we know it is nothing but dust. — full cast, AU.
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This is strange, a little. Elissa had never really thought about marriage much, and certainly not life after marriage. But here she is, sitting in the Queen's Wing with Cailan standing behind her, hand on the back of the settee she's on while this patchwork group of hers is gathered all around.
So very strange. She remembers her mother and father like this, with her and Fergus and everyone else standing about. She just never really expected to be the one in the middle, the one everyone is focused on. This was supposed to be Oriana's deal, not hers.
Dane at her feet is a comfort, at least. When all else feels odd, he will always be the constant, the solid ground that keeps her world upright.
Her hand finds the fur atop his head, fingers scratching beneath his ear. She turns a little, and quietly says to Cailan, "Feel free to tell them," because she doesn't think she can. Not yet, at least. She's not her mother, not Oriana, not a lady of the house, and this is all just not right.
"Oh, thanks," Cailan murmurs in reply, lips barely moving, but there's humour in his voice. "Leave me to the vultures, Elissa, I might as well give up now."
When she only narrows her eyes at him in reply, Cailan has to fight not laugh. She would, too. He straightens up, and looks around at all the people gathered there. It's a larger number than he expected; Ser Gilmore and Soris and Iona, certainly, but also Chamberlain and Iona's daughter and Dane, who deserves a mention all on his own.
"We're going to the summer palace," Cailan says in a rush, because it's best to get this out all at once, "and none of you are coming with us. No, you don't get to argue, you don't get a say, we're doing it, it's happening, you're going to have to deal with it."
Elissa pinches the bridge of her nose. Andraste in a sea squall, what was I thinking? Taking a deep breath, she corrects him. "Dane and Soris will be coming," she says. "Iona will be securing a new maid to accompany us as well while she stays behind with Amethyne and Chamberlain. Ser Gilmore will taking over the City Guard effective immediately and will stay to sort out that mess," she looks up at Cailan. "Right?"
He nods, a grin trying to break it's way across his face. One day, she's going to learn that she can't leave announcements up to him, because he will invariably ruin it and insult everyone in the vicinity without even trying. "Right," he says.
"Your Majesties," comes Chamberlain's old croaky voice, "is this really the time for a vacation."
Elissa winces. Someday, someday, she will learn how to handle Chamberlain. But today is not that day, so she points to Cailan and Iona and says, "This was their idea," and tries to ignore the way Gil looks like he's about to start laughing.
Chamberlain turns to look at Iona, scandalized. He'd thought he'd had an ally in her! He'd thought they could work together to combat the twin evils of bad fashion and castle dirt! He'd trusted her! She is a turncoat!
Iona is, predictably, not fussed. Her face is quite expressionless. "Lord Chamberlain, are you surprised? Their Majesties have not had a chance to court, as is proper. If they do not have the chance to do so, they may never know each other, and Ferelden may never have an heir. That was the point of this endeavor, was it not?"
Chamberlain stares at her, aghast. She knows—she knows, how could she not, she is Lady Elissa's chambermaid—what their Majesties have been up to! She knows! As, he realizes abruptly, so does everyone else in the room. Lady Elissa is bright red, all the way down to the roots of her hair, Lord Cailan's covered his face, and Ser Gilmore looks caught between choking on his laughter and horrified screaming. Even little Amethyne!
The nerve. Chamberlain would be insulted if the whole situation wasn't so absurd.
"Um," Soris starts, and heat starts to rise towards the tips of his ears because he's fairly certain this is something important and he hasn't the foggiest what they're talking about, "am I missing something?"
"No, Soris," Iona smiles at him. "Not at all. Chamberlain is being silly, aren't you, Chamberlain?"
Chamberlain huffs, and decides to approach the topic later, when certain parties aren't about to waylay all his plans. It is impossible to keep an eye on the summer palace, it's too far out, what in the Maker's name will he do if something happens to their Majesties while he's not there? Who will draw their baths? He eyes Iona again. Oh yes, he thinks when she smiles blandly at him, you are the enemy, little miss, don't think I don't see it. I am watching you, child.
Dane huffs. Everything was so peaceful, stupid humans. Mistress was scratching that nice spot behind his ear, and all was good. He whines low at the back of his throat, wanting the peace back. They can argue later, when she isn't paying attention to him. She already settled the important bit, after all. She's going away and he's going with her. That's all that matters.
Now, ear-scratching, please?
Iona sighs. These people, they're all hopeless, really. "So it's settled, then. Their Majesties will leave for the summer palace before the week's end. Chamberlain, you'll need to begin packing, please."
"You will help, little miss, and no complaints," he croaks. "I cannot manage on my own."
"Of course I will, Chamberlain, but first—" she pauses to smile at the royal couple, "—Lady Elissa, Lord Cailan, these are servant matters, you needn't stay to listen. Ser Gilmore, may I borrow Soris for a little while?"
Soris hears his name and—wait, what? "Borrow me?"
"Take him, Iona," Gilmore says, arms crossed over his chest. "See if you can't get him to be more observant of his surroundings while you're at it."
What in—Maker what did he miss this time? Soris stammers, "Borrow me for what? Ser Gilmore? Iona?"
Iona pretends not to see Lady Elissa and Lord Cailan quietly inching backwards. Andraste, they are both very predictable and very unsubtle. If they're not ensconced in his study and attached at the lips by the time she's finished her conversation with Soris, she will be very surprised.
"I need some… advice," she says, absently tucking her hair behind her ear. "I don't know the alienage well enough anymore to make an educated decision, but—would you like to come for a walk?"
He doesn't mean it, really, but an image of Kallian asking him the exactly same question before dragging him into some mess of Red Jenny's rises up from the depths of his memory. Someday, he will learn to stop associating with crazy elven women.
At least, the ones not related to him.
"Of course," he says, and offers her his arm.
Iona smiles at him brightly, and curls her hand around his elbow. He's very warm. On the way out, she catches Ser Gilmore's eye.
She can't help herself. Over her shoulder, she throws him a wink.
He probably doesn't see it, but that's alright. What matters, after all, is that it was there.
—
They are so stealthy, Cailan tells himself. The stealthiest.
(They are not stealthy. They are not even close to stealthy.)
He and Elissa sneak out of the Queen's Wing. He's thinking about steering her into his bedroom and wrapping her hair around his wrists because that's an interesting phenomenon that he's found he likes.
"Have you actually been in my bedroom?" he asks, because it's just occurred to him that he doesn't think she has.
"No," she says, "and if it's anywhere near the library, I am going to blame you for the bruises for all eternity. Why do you ask?"
"Really? Why do I ask?" he says. He's looking down at her, eyebrows raised and the stupidest grin he has in his arsenal on his mouth. "Really?"
"Honestly," she says, pushing his shoulder and moving him absolutely nowhere. Stupid men and their larger frames. "Do you think of nothing else?"
"Sometimes I think about food," he says, honestly.
"You're the King of Ferelden," Elissa stands up on her toes, tries to match him in height and coming nowhere close. One slender finger presses into his chest, just right of his heart. "You have to think about the state of the country, and the military, and the economy, and law enforcement, and lots of things. That's what being a king is."
Cailan's eyebrows rise higher, hands curling around the curve of her back and pulling her close. "Oh, only that? The economy and the military and everything else? When am I supposed to have time to find a Queen, then?"
"You've found two so far," she says, drops down to her heels and starts to saunter off towards his study. "I think you've got that covered."
Oh. That.
Cailan catches her wrist, and reels her back. "I—wanted to wait, to talk about that."
"Talk about what?" Elissa asks, scowling down at his hand on her wrist. What is she, a fish to be dragged in? No one pulls her in like that. It's undignified.
"Anora," he says, suddenly quiet. "And choices."
Well—that's…there goes any fight she had, the name sinking in like poison. Anora. Of course. Of course she would come up. She always comes up because Anora Mac Tir is bloody perfect in every way—
—and Elissa is maybe still a little bitter over comments made years ago when Cailan's first engagement was announced and the news reached Highever.
"What about her?" and her voice is clipped, sharp and a tad more vicious than intended but, well, she can't be blamed.
Cailan looks at her and realizes: oh, she's hurt.
But that hadn't been the point of bringing Anora up at all. He'd brought Anora up because Anora had been a choice, the only choice he'd ever really thought he'd have to make. But no, Elissa doesn't understand that, because he's not told her, and how can he expect her to understand something he hasn't explained?
But she won't listen, not right now, so Cailan…
Well, Cailan makes a decision.
She's small, is Elissa, and slight for all the muscle packed tightly on her bones. It takes hardly anything at all to swing her up and deposit her over his shoulder, and if he hurries, she'll be too stunned that he's done anything to jab her knee into his stomach. He's not counting on much time, and he has to get down a flight of stairs.
"Trust me," he tells her.
She props her chin up on her hands, elbows digging into his shoulder a little harder than necessary. "I don't fancy being executed for regicide, so talk quickly and for the love of all that is holy, put me down!"
What is it with taller men picking her up and carrying her wherever? Fergus was always tossing her into her room when she was too much trouble, or something she wasn't to know about was going on. And Gil—well, best not to think of that, and she rarely objected to the times when he would pick her up and carry her.
But still. Just because she's small doesn't mean anyone can just cart her off like it's no big deal! She is still a Cousland, still the—still the Queen of Ferelden. Right. Which makes this worse, actually, because before she was just the younger child of a Teyrn.
Well, there goes her will to fight. Farewell, old friend, we hardly knew ye.
Any other day, Cailan would take the stairs two at a time. In deference to his Queen up over his shoulder, he takes them slower, the way stairs are meant to be taken, not that he'd ever had much practise at that. His bedroom isn't far, now, just 'round the corner, and he doesn't care if the servants know, Maker, he doesn't care.
"Just trust me," he says again. "Please."
"Don't have much choice right now, do I?" she sighs. "Just don't drop me, you arse."
"As if I would ever," Cailan says, offended. Two minutes later, he sets her down on his bed. "There. Now just, listen, I wasn't trying to—I wasn't trying to compare. I was trying to—there were—Eamon didn't—"
She's sitting there with her arms crossed, face scrunched into a furious glare, and Cailan still can't find the words. He flops down next to her, stretches out but leaves her space to crawl down next to him if she wants. "C'mere, Elissa, please."
She huffs and stands up, crossing the room towards the bookcases. Interesting selection, much better than what's in the library. Not much fiction, though, quite boring. She picks out a book on human-elven politics and starts to read.
"Elissa," Cailan groans, "please."
"Why isn't there a school in the alienage here?" she asks, resolutely ignoring his request. "That's silly. You're wasting hundreds of potential craftsmen who could increase trade and help the city progress. They need a school. And a library."
"And they'll have them, but will you please listen to me?"
"You haven't said anything yet."
"I didn't pick you!"
Oh. Well then. "That's a pity. What lies were you told to get you to agree?"
Cailan snorts. "Told? I wasn't told anything."
Wasn't told anything? Elissa slowly closes the book, the words starting to become blurry. He wasn't told anything? "Did you even know it was going to be me before I arrived?"
"I did," he says, and there's bitter ash on his tongue. "By about three days."
Elissa breathes in through her nose, counting down from five in her head. "You're telling me that Arl Eamon looked my father in the eye and proceeded to lie through his teeth?"
"I don't know, what did he tell your father?"
"That this was your idea," she says, putting the book back on the shelf. "That I was your choice. That this had been in discussion in Denerim for months."
"Then yes," Cailan says, "that is exactly what I'm telling you. I brought up Anora because—because she was my best friend, Elissa. She was my older sister, and I married her because my father had just disappeared and I had no idea how to run a country and I was scared."
"That's a shitty reason to marry someone." She scowls, doesn't mean to, really, but Andraste, did he actually just compare his first wife to his sister? That should have been the first sign that the marriage was a bad idea. Who on earth marries the person they think of as a sibling?
"Yeah," he says, "I know. But if I'd married anyone else, they would have made her leave, and I'd never lived without her. I didn't know how."
Breathe, Elissa, she has to remind herself. That is, by far, the whiniest excuse for a bad decision she has ever heard. And she knows Sebastian Vael. That just…really? No wonder so much of the Bannorn was in favor of placing Father on the throne instead; their alternative was a bloody child in a grown man's body. "That is stellar decision making there. Andraste in a sea squall, are you kidding me?"
"No," he says, and he's laughing a little helplessly, because for certain in the years since he's had this conversation with himself more than once. "I was an idiot, I know that. Still am, far as most people are concerned."
"Well, you're not exactly giving people much to counter that opinion." The scowl lessens and she can't quite keep the anger up in the face of him looking so miserable. Lost, really, like the whole world's gone out from under him and she remembers all too well what that feeling is. "Give yourself a little credit. You're terrible with people, but you're not always an idiot."
"Thanks," he says, "I think. Will you come lay down, now? I just want to explain."
She doesn't lay down, won't, yet, but she does find a place to sit towards the head of the bed. "Then talk."
"It was Eamon's idea," Cailan says. He folds his arms behind his head and stares at the canopy, remembering. "Anora's twenty-eighth birthday, I think, was when it started. It was just a passing comment, can't even remember who, now, but it was…"
There isn't really a word for that level of Orlesian snide.
"It was unkind," he decides on. "Something about her being barren, or something ridiculous. And this all might have been avoided, but Eamon heard it."
And Eamon ran with it.
Eamon ran with it all the way to the Korcari Wilds, over the hills and gone.
"His letters got… odd. I didn't think anything of it at first. But then he was talking about age and children, and how Anora hadn't yet conceived, and he said—he said if she hadn't yet, then she likely wouldn't."
It had been an ugly conversation. Elissa doesn't need to know that.
"And he was right, but not for the reasons he thought. When I said she was like my older sister—" he breaks out to bark out a jagged little laugh, "—I meant it. It was all wrong, felt wrong, neither of us—"
Cailan pauses, to breathe. To breathe.
"We weren't suited, Anora and I," he murmurs. "But she was still my best friend, and a better ruler than me by far. It… made sense, at the time, and I never really thought about it because I didn't have to. But Eamon… Eamon wouldn't let it alone."
And he doesn't talk about the weeks of cold silence between them, the exhaustion smeared beneath Anora's eyes, the quietly nervous way Teagan would look between them at court functions. Those things aren't relevant, not really, and he'll tell her about them one day, but not now. Not now, because now she needs to understand.
"It was her idea," he says. "I don't know how Eamon convinced her; I may never know. But last midwinter, she sat me down and told me that I needed to find a new queen, because she didn't want to do it anymore. And we fought."
Cailan had listened to his parents fight all the time, growing up. Listening to them had scarred him deep in the depths of his soul, in ways he still doesn't always understand. But he'd never realized that being in the middle of one of those fights was far worse than simply hearing one.
"She was gone the next morning," Cailan says. "And I wrote to Eamon and told him fine, I didn't care anymore, he wanted a new queen he could pick one himself. I wanted nothing to do with it."
He chuckles, soft and low and unconscionably bitter. "I was a rude little shit about it, too. I'm surprised he even wrote me back. But the point was—the point was I lost my choice, and I'm still angry about it but it doesn't matter, because what really hurts is that because I was prick, you lost your choice, too. And you shouldn't have. And I'm sorry."
Cailan swallows hard. "I'm really, really sorry."
She leans her head back against the headboard, stares at the canopy as the air leaves her lungs in a whoosh. Well, that hadn't been what she was expecting. "I had never fought with my father before, not until that," she speaks carefully around the memories, still sharp and ready to cut because that is one of her last memories of her father and that, she thinks, is a primary motivator for wanting to burn Amaranthine to the ground and extinguish the Howe line once and for all.
But she won't say that. That's a dark, awful thing. He doesn't need that right now, doesn't need it ever, really. Those details are best kept to her and Dane and Gil, the only ones still standing who were there, who remember every horrible thing she said.
"Logically, I knew it was going to happen at some point," Elissa thinks of the first time her mother took her aboard the Mistral, misses the salt wind her hair with a fierce knife of longing behind her ribs. "He'd tried to give me a choice. He and Mother both, really. I was introduced to so many noblemen in hopes I'd pick one, but—"
There was always Gil, she thinks. Always Gil, yes, and no one was ever going to be as important, will ever be as important because, well, he's her best friend. They just never had the sibling aspect, not really. That had been avoided with a bouquet of seashells.
None of that matters, now. All of it is bitter, rosy broken bits of memories that will never be shared. Then she looks at Cailan a long while and thinks maybe. It had been the foolish love of childhood, after all, innocent and sweet and never meant to last. There wasn't a sibling aspect to it, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn't so different from him and Anora.
That, though, is a conversation for another time.
"—but it just never worked," she says, settling for the diplomatic. "It was inevitable, really, that someone I couldn't refuse would come along."
She shrugs, draws her knees up to her chest. "And then Eamon came along. Funny thing is, I had been joking about running away just that morning. For a long time, I thought that was what I wanted. Then Howe happened and I thought about Kirkwall and all the connections in the Marches I have; I could have retaken Highever by sea easily."
"You still could have," Cailan says, softly, thinks about it, all of it, about holding out his hand on that stupid dais, and the trepidation in her face when she'd linked their fingers. "I would have understood. Did understand, I think."
"You shouldn't have made it seem like I had a choice, then." she mumbles.
"You did have a choice, though?" he says, turns his head to blink at her. "I mean, that was the point, I'd taken away your choice in the first place and I just… wanted to give it back."
She frowns. "You don't really think that, do you? That I could have just left the King of Ferelden at the altar and run off to raise an army and retake my city? Highever already has enough problems trying to trade with Ferelden, with trying to get alliances built with the families here. If I'd done that, we'd have to go back to being a Free City and close our borders again. Our reputation would never recover from that. Maker, most of the nobles here would have taken it as an invitation for war."
"I wouldn't have let them," he says. "I just—wanted you to choose. As you. Not as, I don't know, as a Cousland, or—or whatever. I just wanted… I don't know."
"But I am a Cousland," she doesn't know how to put it, not really. "Just as you're a Theirin. We can't change that. It might be different for you, but for me, Highever's well-being is no different than the well-being of my family. The city is my family."
"And that makes sense," Cailan tells her, because he does understand that nearly-painful swell of affection, thinking about a place you love so much the thought of it hurting makes all of your organs clench, "but that's still… You're still Elissa. You're still a person. And you should get to choose, is all. Everyone should get to choose."
She snorts, undignified and Nan would be yelling at her, but Nan is gone and who cares? "If I'd had my choice, I would have taken the Mistral and terrorized the Waking Sea."
"Somehow," Cailan shakes his head against the pillows, "I can see it."
"I might have chosen you, though, if I'd known you," she admits. "You're not so bad. Just—don't ever do the marry-a-stranger thing again. It's awful and should be banned."
"I'm not planning on getting married again," he says, casually, "so it's not a problem."
"You sure about that?"
"Yes," he says. "If you leave, I'm going to have to give up entirely. No hope."
"If I leave," she stretches out her legs, slowly unfurling her body, "this country will fall apart. Your knowledge of trade routes and managing alliances is terrible. And you still owe me Rendon Howe's head on a pike."
"That I do," Cailan says. He's cautious when he touches her, hands careful as he pulls her down and tucks her into the curve of his side.
He's warm, even through his clothes, like he has the sun under his skin. If she places her head on his chest, she can hear his heart and it is a strange sensation. She's done the same before, with other men and it was different. This is a heart she doesn't know, a rhythm not as familiar as her own.
She still isn't sure if this is good or not.
"And Cailan?" she asks, quiet, because this too is unfamiliar ground; it treads far too close to memories she'd rather not acknowledge.
"Yes, Elissa?"
"Never bring her up again, please."
Cailan laughs into her hair. He shouldn't be surprised, really he shouldn't.
"I can do that," he tells her. "I think."
—
Maker in a nunnery what is this? Gil knows what the guard assignments looked like in Highever; helped work them out, in fact. This, though, this is a level of ridiculous he has never seen before.
"Really, boy, I think we're in the weeds with this," he says, absently, to Dane. The Mabari is sound asleep and does not stir.
Gil shuffles the papers around. If he's reading this right, then the guards assigned to the market district—which should be the busiest district for the guard, what with the market and the alienage gates right there—seem to mostly be noble bastards who have received little or no training. At least, he can't find any requisition requests for equipment or training space, which suggests there's not been much at all. The docks are similarly unprotected, and there's no guards at all stationed in the lonely district.
How has Denerim not torn itself apart?
He's got three reports sorted out from the others already, suggesting at extensive organized crime. Some is to be expected in a city this size, but for so little to have been done about it…there is no logical way to explain Denerim's relative stability. None whatsoever.
So, looks like his to-do list is: total reassignment of guards, retraining every guard in the city, and reissuing every order they've received in the last six years.
Completely doable.
Gil's head hits the desk with a goan.
"Ser Gilmore? Are you alright?"
He looks up to find Iona standing at the door, hands folded together and still wearing a cloak over her dress. "Denerim's City Guard, has it ever been functional?"
"No, not really," Iona says, as kindly as she can as she slides the cloak off her shoulders and drapes it over her arm. He looks quite put out at that, but it's the truth: the guard has always been something of a joke. For all that Iona loves this city, she knows it is not a safe place—everyone knows it's better to pay the hoodrat street gangs down in the slums for protection, because you're much more likely to get it there than through the guard.
Poor Ser Gilmore. He's no idea what he's gotten himself into.
"Are there any good guardsmen that you know of?" He's seen the reports, read them six times over. Only a very few make any sense. There are guards being praised for things that are not right. "I'm starting to think the bad reports are the guards I need to be trusting."
"The ones with the worst patrols," Iona says, smiling. "There's a Sergeant in the market, called Kylon, he's quite good. Not fond of mercenaries, but not afraid of them, either. He used to patrol the alienage, sometimes."
Kylon, yes. That name's popped up more than once in complaints from noblemen. He'll have to check this out; by the time all is said and done, the guard is going to be needing a new captain. "Only sometimes? Why'd he stop?" he asks, looking through the reports on the alienage. There hasn't been a proper patrol there in almost five years.
"I don't know," Iona says, frowning. She bends down to look at the scattered reports across the table. None of them are very surprising. "Could be anything, really."
"I don't want to bring Soris into this," he says, leaning back in his chair. "Not yet, at least. But I'm starting to think I'll have to. He taught himself to fight watching these men. He'll know more about them than almost anyone else."
"That could be… problematic," Iona says, exhaling. She chews on her lip. "Soris is… fragile, Ser Gilmore. Or maybe it's lonely, I don't know. He barely spoke at all, when we went to the alienage. I'm… worried, about him."
"I'm not entirely sure what to do with him, to be honest." Gil's thought about it, of course. Lissy taking the elf to the summer palace will likely be good for him, if only to get him away from the city and somewhere where he can think clearly. "Any suggestions?"
"Getting out of Denerim will be good for him, I think," she says, tilting her head back and forth as she thinks about it. "And Lady Elissa's new maid—it's his cousin, her name is Shianni, she seems capable enough and he trusts her. But I don't know… I think the only thing that will help is time. His whole world's fallen out from under him."
"He's in good company, then," he says, then falls silent at her quelling glare. "It's true. So I should just give him some time? Light duty and palace patrols until he settles in?"
"Oh no," she shakes her head. "Just the opposite. He needs a distraction. I'd put him on alley duty, but I'd be worried he'd near kill himself."
"But the City Guard is out of the question?" He can already see some of the problems. Soris is an elf from the alienage. He has history with the guard. Of course the best qualified member of the queensguard would be the one most of the guard will likely try to kill.
Iona grimaces, thinking of the sneering guard faces she'd grown up with. "Unfortunately, yes."
"Damn," he says. "Training against Soris and Dane would probably be the most effective way to weed out the weaklings. I'll just have to find the good ones myself." Though, maybe, he can still take the reports of the most promising guards to Soris to ask about recommendations. Might work, and it might not get either of them killed.
(Whether it will be the guard or Iona doing the killing, he's not entirely sure.)
"That could still be a possibility," she says, face creasing deep into thought. "If they were small enough groups, anyway. Dane and Soris would be fine against five, maybe ten, and if we watched, we'd be able to put a stop to more of the virulently racist applicants."
"Actually," he says, a bit hesitant because her reaction could be quite bad here, he thinks, "I was thinking of putting the guards against the two of them in two-on-one fights. The guards are going to need to know how to fight multiple opponents at once, and Soris is dangerous enough to count for three on his own. Dane, too."
It would be best, he knows. It would also be the worst. If noblemen who send their bastards to the guard find out what the new testing is, it could be a riot. People are oddly touchy about making humans fight non-humans to prove their worth.
"You realize that's a recipe for a lot of dead guards, correct," Iona says, voice mild.
"Soris would be using a blunted sword, if not a wooden one. The potential guard too," Gil says. "And Dane would be under strict orders to not kill. I'd be watching the entire time."
Iona sighs audibly. "If even one nobleman's son ends up dead, it's on your head," she says. "If I have to deal with Lady Elissa on the warpath because some noble's secret bastard goes home crying, I will kick you, Ser Gilmore, don't think I won't."
"Lissy will just tell the nobles that being a guard is dangerous in this city and if they didn't want their bastards dead, they shouldn't have sent them to be guardsmen." Gil almost laughs at the thought of little Elissa up against an angry nobleman. It would be like watching an angry kitten fight off a bear, he thinks. "And just tell her to come to me directly. Better she yell at me for my own mistakes."
"She might do that anyway, Ser Gilmore," Iona chuckles. "She's not the type to let anyone get away with anything."
"No, she's not," he agrees. "I do think this is the best choice. We weed out the guardsmen who can't handle the job by finding the ones who can't face more than one opponent or who can't control themselves. At the same time, Soris gets real combat experience in a controlled environment."
"I suppose it's a good idea as any," she murmurs. "We'll have to wait, of course, until their Majesties return from the summer palace."
"True. In the meantime, I think I'll need to talk to this Sergeant Kylon. And maybe someone who knows the city and her guards from an outside point of view," he says, more to himself.
Iona touches his shoulder, smiles when he looks up at her. "I know you've got a lot on your shoulders. Thank you, Ser Gilmore, for trying so hard. The city will thank you, I'm sure of it."
"Only after it tries to crucify me, you mean."
"That is usually how it goes," she laughs. Her fingers linger at his shoulder for a moment longer, half-hesitant.
"Oh, I know," he says. "Never thought I'd be the one doing it."
"That is also usually how it goes," she says, pulls her hand away. He's wrapped up in his work, and she has her own to get to. Chamberlain is probably emptying Lady Elissa's things into some monstrosity of a trunk—he's got the look of a man who always overpacks, and if Iona allows him the leeway he's sure to want, Lady Elissa will go to the summer palace with every single dress she owns and not a single pair of breeches.
She picks up her cloak and her bag. Perhaps she'll go check on Soris and Shianni first, just in case.
"Good day, Ser Gilmore," she says, absently. "Please try not to get killed."
He laughs. "I've made it this far. Take care of yourself. I think Chamberlain will be after you for earlier."
"He'll have to catch me, first," Iona tells him airily, and then she's gone, the door closing with a polite click behind her.
—
There is remarkably little on Fade connections of this nature. Neria chews on her lip, books spread out all around her. Magic dances on her fingers as she twirls them around in the air absently, a pen dancing across paper in time with the movements. So strange, all of this. Whatever Solona did is holding, which is good. The Dalish girl will be fine for a while.
But this could be made permanent.
If only she knew what it is.
Kallian—sound asleep, head on a book, see Neria had said books were a vital part of life—said little about the taint. The Warden Duncan had given them miniscule information on it. It's bad, this taint. Lethal if left unchecked, and only Wardens know how to do that.
Only, Wardens don't seem to live very long after becoming Wardens.
(She'd gone back to the library for books about three notebooks ago. Well, maybe four. The pen enchanted to write her notes flips a page and this book is almost done. She'll have to find more, soon.)
Following the chains didn't work, either. She pouts a little at the thought. It's always so annoying when things go beyond the in-between, into the dark place she cannot enter. Still need to figure out what that is. There's something not right with that. No, never been right, must be something—
"Fssskff—Andraste's ti—where'm I?"
"Please don't drool on the books," Neria says, absently, flipping a page in the book. "You might smear the ink and wake up something."
"Wake up som'thin'? Wha…?" Kally blinks sleep-sticky eyes. "I don't drool in my sleep? At least, I didn't the last time I checked?"
"Oh, well, still. Magical books tend to attract things that like to be left alone," she says. "Pass me the one about the Old Gods, please."
"Which one?" Kally's trying not to slur. Maker, it is too early for this, she has not slept even close to enough, and the old man and Lyna—
She sits up, sudden panic in the throat. Lyna. "Where's Lyna? Is she alright?"
Neria looks at the bed, confirms its occupants, and says, "Still in bed, sound asleep. The shadows haven't spread."
"Oh," Kally breathes out. "Okay."
She directs her attention to where Lyna's still asleep. She doesn't look any worse than she did yesterday; in fact, without the black veins creeping up her neck and shadowing her eyelids, she looks a whole lot better. But her breathing is still high and weird, a little hhh-hhh whistling sound that grates along Kally's teeth.
"Stupid," she tells Lyna's motionless form. "Will you tell us the next time you're hurting?"
But Lyna doesn't wake, doesn't move at all, and that's probably the only answer Kally is going to get. She exhales again, slower, trying to calm the pounding of her heart.
And someone is staring at her.
Kally and the girl blink at each other.
"Good—morning?" a voice hazards. "Is it morning?"
"You've missed breakfast," Neria says. "But I don't think anyone's going to question it. By now most of the tower will know you're Harrowed."
No, no one will likely question it. Harrowed mages aren't usually seen for days. Neria tries to remember the average, but can't, quite. Her head's too full of lore and questions. Not that it matters much. She and Solona have always been the odd ones. Anyone who wonders obviously hasn't been paying attention.
Solona sits up. All of her bones ache. Nerry's sitting on the table with—Kallian? Kally? Kally, that was it, Kally—Duncan's recruit. She's surrounded by books.
"Nerry," Solona says, "have you slept?"
"Define slept."
"So you haven't, then," Solona sighs. She pushes out of the bed, deftly manages to avoid waking the slumbering Dalish elf in Neria's bed, and stands up. Her knees are still unsteady. It's been a long time since she's poured out that kind of healing magic. "Get off the table, duckling, you need some food."
"But breakfast will be over," Neria says, the magic fading from her hands as the pen falls still in a puddle of ink. "Where will we find food?"
"Do you know where the kitchens are?" Kally pipes up.
Neria chews on the inside of her lip. "They don't like us going in there unsupervised."
"...What's your point?" Kally asks. "No one'll know, and I'm pretty good at locks."
"The lock's not the problem." Neria scratches the back of her head. How to explain this to someone on the outside? "There are always Templars, and the kitchen is staffed by Tranquil. Getting past them isn't easy."
"Have you done it before?" Kally asks.
"Maybe." Neria shrugs. "Solona?"
"You've not slept, duckling," Solona says. "And I've not eaten in—Andraste, I don't even know how long, it feels like a year. And, well, Cullen's on kitchen duty. I think."
Neria wrinkles her nose. Cullen. Of course it has to be him, stupid little boy. One would think they'd only let the good-with-people types become Templars but no that would be too difficult, wouldn't it? "I can hex him if you want. Solitary will be worth it."
"No hexing," Solona scolds, "we've been over this. He's just… not my type, is all."
"He's still a creep. Little boys shouldn't play at being Templars."
Solona sends the most quelling glare she can manage in Neria's general direction. "He's—well, he's fine. And if he's on kitchen duty, no one will tell. Unless," she looks at Kally, "you would."
Kally squints. "Do I look like a snitch?"
"Sonny?" Neria asks, and when the other mage nods, she sighs. "I guess we're going to the kitchens, then. Is it okay to leave that one here?"
"You'd know better than I would," Solona murmurs. "She's running a fever, but it's a low one. She should be alright on her own, for a little while."
The shadows still haven't moved, other than the writhing they always seem to be doing. "She'll be fine, then. Let's go, before the Warden comes to look for his recruits."
"We're not going anywhere until Lyna's better," Kally says, flopping one shoulder up and down. "I heard a couple of Templars talking about it. They all want him to leave."
"Of course they do." Neria hops off the table, stretching her arms towards the ceiling as the joints in her back go pop. "They're afraid he'll take us away too and we just can't have that."
"That's dumb," Kally mutters, "you'd think they'd want you to leave."
"Oh no," Neria smiles serenely, gliding past the other elf to link arms with Solona. "The Chantry can be so possessive. They guard us the way dwarves guard their gold. So silly, but it's the way things are."
"That's not the way it is at all," Solona sighs down at the her friend, "and you know it."
"Are you saying the books are wrong?" she says, eyes wide with wonder. "The dwarves don't guard their gold like it's more precious than life itself?"
"They do, Nerry, but it's not—" Solona reigns herself in. She forgets, sometimes, that Neria hasn't spent much time talking to the other apprentices, or even the other mages. She forgets that, far as her friend is concerned, there is no outside; there is nothing but the Tower, and the books, and the Templars.
And the magic.
Solona must never forget the magic.
Instead, she shakes her head, sad and fond. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it is a little like that."
"To the kitchens we go," Neria sings, "are you coming, Kally?"
"Yeah, 'course," Kally laughs, bites back the snarky retort when she sees the way Solona's mouth tightens. There's something here that she's not able to grab at; maybe it's their long friendship, but she doesn't think so. Neria is off, somehow, doesn't quite belong in the world the way the rest of everyone seems to. She's both there and not. It's very strange.
Kally thinks of the previous night, the way Neria had looked far, far away, even when she was sitting right there, and wonders.
Neria spins on her heel, a funny little giggle tucked into the corner of her mouth, and then she's skipping away. The sound of her humming trails behind her even when she's turned the corner, and Solona looks and Kally, and bites her lip.
"About Nerry…" she says, very quietly.
"Is she always like that?" Kally asks, a little too awed by the whole situation to say anything else. This is the Circle Tower. She didn't think they knew how to skip, here; it's nice to be proven wrong, but still.
"Yes," Solona says. Her face crumples. "Please don't tell anyone."
"Tell anyone what?"
"About Nerry," and Solona heaves out a very great sigh. She does that a lot; Solona sighs like there's a whole universe in her chest and it's wailing to get out of her, but the only way it can is on these great large exhalations. "She's… she's different."
"Well, I can see that," Kally says, shakes her head until her hair's whipping around her face. She was skipping, she doesn't say. She was skipping and humming and when she looked at me she looked right through me, all the way down to my bones.
"No, it's not—I mean, she's not—" and here, the mage visibly struggles for words. "You don't understand, she's not like anyone, anyone at all, ever. She doesn't—the world's bigger, to Nerry, but if I'm not here, she'd get lost in own head and accidentally fall into the Void, and I—!"
"You?" Kally prompts.
"I'd die without her," Solona says, so quiet. "I wouldn't survive. I wouldn't know how."
Kally stares at the way Solona's head dips, dark hair feathering over her slumped shoulders like the ash that falls in Denerim sometimes instead of snow, black as charcoal and infinitely less useful. It's near the same colour as Lyna's, and maybe that's what cools Kally's head. Lyna had been the same, apparently, about the boy that had disappeared. And though Lyna's still standing, Kally has to wonder how much of her is left inside.
And really, Kally can't talk. She thinks of Soris and Shianni, and swallows hard.
"I get it," Kally tells her, just as softly. The hallways of the Tower are blue-orange-blue-again, shadowed and light in turn, and they're the same solid stone as the alienage's walls. Here, too, are walls too high to climb, but at least at home the walls were meant to keep others out.
This place is a prison, and Andraste's saggy buttocks, Kally has never wanted to escape something so much in her life.
"Do you have someone like that?"
Someone that you cannot live without hangs between them, unsaid.
"I guess," Kally says. "Yes. No. Sort of?"
Solona smiles at her like she understands, and Kally thinks she might. It's family, this ache in her chest, Shianni and Soris and Ada and Uncle Valendrian. And maybe the old man and Lyna will be there some day, in that dark sticky place behind her ribs where she keeps her mother's name. Maybe Neria will be, too. Maybe even Solona, human as she is.
And so Kally offers her an arm. "Should we go make sure your little maniac hasn't blown anything up?"
"Don't call her that," Solona says, and takes the offered arm.
"Are you two coming?" Neria says, a pout already forming on her lips. She's hanging upside down from a light, skinny legs hooked over the pole connecting it to the wall. White hair swings towards the ground, shimmering all sorts of colors in the light.
"Duckling, get down," Solona says, voice high and choking on itself, "you're going to get hurt!"
Neria swings down, lands with barely a sound. "Cullen's up ahead."
"One day you're going to fall on your head, and your skull will crack open like an egg, and then I'll have to—oh, hello, Ser Cullen."
Stay calm, he thinks, it's just—no, don't go there. Those aren't good thoughts. Those are bad, very bad, and heat's already rising up his cheeks. "Solona, hello, ho-how are you?"
Solona takes a shaky breath, tries for a smile. Stay calm, she tells herself, it's just— "I'm fine," she says, carefully tucking long dark strands of hair behind her ear. "Just, um, looking to see if we can't find some food? I slept through breakfast, you see."
"Breakfast?" Cullen repeats. Oh, right, breakfast. "The Tranquil are preparing lunch right now."
Neria tucks herself close against Solona. Tranquil. They're creepy. Very creepy indeed, all calm and emotionless and cut off from everything important. "It's not just Solona, Ser Cullen. The Warden's recruits slept through breakfast too."
"And you haven't eaten, either," Solona reminds her, soft. She looks up at Ser Cullen, biting her lip just a little so it goes flush-with-blood red. "Are you sure there's nothing left? We'll be very quiet, no one will even notice we're there."
His throat's gone dry. Maker, she's pretty. He can't quite think, the world's gone all narrow until there's only her and those bright blue eyes. He takes a shaky breath and blinks a few times before everything straightens out a little. Looking side to side, there don't seem to be any other Templars around.
Of course there aren't, he reminds himself, you traded a month's worth of kitchen duty to be at her Harrowing.
"Promise you won't disturb the Tranquil?" he asks, very quiet. "I can't protect you if they go to the Knight-Captain."
"I'll keep hold of Nerry," she says, ducking her head shyly and grinning up at him through her lashes. "We'll be good. Promise."
"Then go on," he says, tries to ignore the way it's far too hot inside his armour. Count the stones on the floor. Yes, that's a good thing, just step a little to the side so the door is unobstructed and count the stones.
"I appreciate it more than you know, Ser Cullen," Solona says. She shoves a grumbling Nerry and a smirking Kally past him through the open kitchen door before she very, very carefully presses her fingers to the hollow of his wrist. It's a thank you, soft and sweet, and hopefully it won't encourage him too much.
Feelings are so difficult, Solona thinks miserably to herself. I'm sorry, Ser Cullen, I wish I could like you.
"You shouldn't do things like that," Neria murmurs. "You might kill him one of these days."
Yes, well, a lot of things are going to kill him. What's one more?
Templars aside, the kitchen is teeming with Tranquil moving about. Neria shivers, tries to not think about it. If there's anything truly awful about living in the Tower, it's the Tranquil. There's something inherently wrong about them, like they're not really alive. They're invisible. Not even the dwarves are so unconnected from everything like that.
Nothing can survive the Rite of Tranquility. Nothing at all. Even corpses are more here than the Tranquil. She moves as close as she can to Solona, hides in the other mage's shadows. If they can't see her, they can't touch her. If they ignore her, then maybe she can just pretend they aren't here.
"Should we take anything back for your friend?" she asks. "What kind of foods does she like?"
"She's not very fond of meat," Kally says, considering. Or at least, she hasn't seemed to—when Kally and the old man have torn into cooked rabbit with an almost appalling eagerness, Lyna had gone to collect strange edible leaves with weird textures that, after the first time, Kally had adamantly refused. There had been pulpy roots and starchy tubers, as well, and berries whenever they could get them.
Often, Kally thinks bitterly, they can't get them. "Fruit, if there is," she says at last. "And fried potatoes. I don't know how she'd do with sausage, but she might like hot cakes with syrup."
"Fruit we can do," Neria says, peeling herself away from Solona just a little. "They appear on Thursdays."
"I used to watch them come across the lake," Solona says, "from Redcliffe, must have been. Now hush, both of you, and I'll go get some food. Try not to—" she slaps Kally's hands away from sneaking into the big jars along the wall. "—touch anything."
Kally grins meanly. "C'mon, Solona, not even a little bit of touching?"
"Not even a little bit," replies Solona firmly.
The Tower kitchens are a warm set of rooms on the third floor; they heat the whole Tower, truly, warmth seeping from the ovens through the stone floors both up and down. Solona tries very hard to ignore Kally and Nerry muttering at each other under their breath while she goes to talk to one of the Tranquil about finding some leftovers; together they'll be a horror, she knows, but she has no choice.
"Is there anything left from breakfast?" Solona asks one of the Tranquil girls. Her head is shaved, and she does not smile.
"Yes," the Tranquil says, simply.
"Where is it?"
"There," and the girl points to the ice box next to the gargantuan pantry. "Please don't mess anything up, if you want some. We only cleaned yesterday."
"Thank you," Solona murmurs, heart in her throat. The Tranquil terrify Nerry, always have; they only make Solona sad.
"You're welcome," the girl says, measured, slow. She turns her attention back to the pot she'd been scrubbing like Solona isn't even there.
Maker, Solona thinks, have mercy on their souls.
—
Salt on the wind, water twinning with the scent to the point that if she just closes her eyes, the sound of the waves on the cliffs fills her head and the sea is all she knows. If ever there is a place that can be called heaven on earth, it is the sea. The Amaranthine Ocean is not nearly as lovely as the Waking Sea and never will be, but there is a certain charm to it.
The summer palace is a small, quaint place built right on the edge of the cliffs. When they arrive, the sun is just starting it's descent into a horizon of endless water. Everything is painted in hues of gold and purple, from the waving grasses and the smattering of wildflowers mixed in all the way to the churning depths of the ocean.
"It's beautiful," she breathes, barely there. The waves turn into each other, blue on purple on white surf and the depths shine in green and blue and black below. There's a lump in her throat. Her heart, maybe, knocked out of place by the intense longing that strikes her.
She hadn't realized how badly she missed the water.
Elissa reaches down to scratch Dane just behind the ears, wind twisting her skirts around her legs. "It's not home, but at least it's saltwater."
Cailan watches Elissa watch the horizon.
Something twists, low in his gut. He should have thought of this earlier. Of course, there'd been the wedding, and planning, and other things—but he still should have thought of this sooner. Of course she'd want to be close to the ocean; it's all she's ever known.
But Cailan, too, hasn't forgotten how much he loves this place.
"We can go sailing, in the morning, if you'd like," he tells her. The wind's whipped her hair away from her face, and there's colour in her cheeks in a way he hasn't seen before. Denerim doesn't do her justice at all; Elissa ought to have been a mermaid. "There's a boat down at the dock, though I can't say anything about its sea-worthiness," and here he shrugs, a little sheepish. "I'm not much a sailor."
"Dane can help," she says. At her feet, the Mabari pants happily. "He's a Cousland too, after all. Wouldn't do any good if he didn't know his way around a boat." She tosses a smile over her shoulder, hair in her eyes. "And I can teach you, if you want. If it's just a small fishing boat, it's not that complicated."
"I'd like that," he says. The sun's turned her all to gold, and for a minute he nearly stumbles over himself, trying to find the words. "I'm warning you now, I've been told I'm hopeless."
"If you can tie a knot and follow instructions, it'll be fine." She turns to face him, wind at her back. Sunlight, too. The warmth is a comfort along her spine. It's a reminder that she is safe; she is somewhere where she is in control. Where there is open water and a boat, she is always in control.
"What if I fall in?" he asks. Far out on the ocean, the squalls cap white. There's a storm brewing, he thinks, and when it hits it will be amazing. The summer palace is prepared for such things, but Cailan is not.
Maker, he can hardly wait.
"Can't you swim?" Elissa frowns.
"Oh, I can swim," he says, and laughs like she's told a joke, "I just think I'd do poorly getting back in the boat."
"That's what rope is for," she says. Land people—they never make any sense. "If nothing else, Dane can keep an eye on you. If you get too close, he'll just drag you back. Of course, you'll likely end up with a bruised arse that way, so perhaps just try to stay away from the edges."
"Your dog is going to kill me one day," he tells her, cheerful.
Dane whines low. The Mabari presses against her leg, brown eyes soulful. Elissa thinks he's the world's best liar. "He won't do that. He knows he won't get any ox bones for the rest of his life if he does that."
Magic words, those are, and Dane backs off with his nose in the air like he's too good for her.
Cailan has to work very hard not to laugh. They're standing so close to the edge of the cliff that the wind comes swooping up from below, the salt of the ocean caught on it startlingly bright. For a moment, there's nothing but the sound of waves crashing against rock. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his breeches, tilts his head back to look at the sky.
"Thanks," he says.
"I think I'm the one who should be saying that," she smiles, looking back out over the ocean. "Unless you're talking to the Maker, in which case I hope you don't want a reply."
Cailan doesn't really think the Maker exists, though that's neither here nor there. "No," he says, "I was talking to you."
"For what?" She asks, hair everywhere. The pins are useless at this point and she sighs, pulling them loose until dark curls twist together, tangled like the ocean's waves. "I haven't done anything."
He shrugs, unable to look her in the eye, if only because he doesn't really know what he's thanking her for. It feels right, but there isn't really a reason for it.
(But this is Cailan's life now, so he's not at all surprised.)
"For getting me back out here," he says. It's not even a lie. "I never would have come on my own."
"This was your idea," she says, confused. He's odd. That's the one certainty she has, after he's a good man and he's too innocent. Cailan is very odd, and she wonders whether or not she will ever figure him out. This will be good for him, maybe. Getting him away from Denerim, away from Chamberlain, it might give him some room to breathe freely. That would do him some good, she thinks. "I didn't even know this place existed until you suggested coming here."
"I know," he says. And she's right, in a way, because he'd wanted to come here for her.
But there's tension bleeding out of his shoulders with every breath of clean salt air, the sick nausea of Denerim left somewhere far behind, and for the first time in a long time, Cailan feels like he can breathe. There's no responsibility here, no one watching and waiting for him to trip over himself and ruin everything. He can feel himself unwinding, limbs going loose and uncoordinated, just standing next to her.
"I'll be better here," he tells her, "I think."
"Salt air is good for you," she replies, laughter hidden in her smile, "so is absolutely everything that isn't Denerim." That city is poison incarnate. There's no space for wind to carry the Amaranthine in, the water that is there is murky with sickness, and no one is happy there. "And sunshine," she adds, looking at him from head to toe, "just take care not to burn. You're so pale you might just explode if you're outside too long."
"Or if I look at myself in the mirror," he says, dryly. "A bundle of joy, aren't I."
"Only if by joy you mean Chamberlain's joy at the complete absence of fun," she says. "And avoid any reflective surfaces, please. I'd hate to have to go back to Highever after less than a fortnight because I was widowed by a mirror."
"It'd be a funny story to tell at parties," Cailan says. "My husband looked at himself in a spoon and then died. People would pat your hand in sympathy."
Elissa begins to respond, but can't, quite. There's something in the easy way that he says husband that makes the ground feel shaky like she's just stepped on shore after being at sea for ages. Sometimes she forgets that this is not new to him. He's been a husband for some time, just not to her. Staring out at sea, she can see the waves roll with more intensity, the wind picking up with a sharp tang of wild. "There's to be a storm tonight," she settles on, choosing to ignore the other things she could say. "Do you think we'll get to see the Torch before it hits?"
(And the million and one things she probably should say.)
"If we're lucky," Cailan says. He offers her his hand, squashing hesitance at the far-away look in her eyes. "We can watch it from the balcony. Walk with me?"
Her hand is tiny in his, so much smaller than she'd ever thought it was. "Of course. We could both do with some fresh air," she says.
There isn't much of a path, but as he leads her out, she can just barely make out where one used to be. Railings have been worn smooth from hands passing over them so many times; and some of the flowers here look almost like garden escapees. Someone must have loved this place very dearly, once.
"Dane could use the exercise," she adds as the Mabari takes off ahead of them, a blur of brown amid the grass. "Have you ever had a Mabari before?"
"No," he says. He remembers tumbling through puppy piles on long winter days, eventually getting chased out by the shrieking kennel-master. "I used to love going to play in the kennels, though."
"I'm sorry," she says, means it too. "It must have been lonely growing up there."
"It wasn't so bad," he says, and he's almost about to say something about Anora, but he realizes that maybe that's not such a good idea. "I read a lot."
"It's so quiet," she murmurs. "Highever was never quiet. There was always someone to talk to, always something to do. I can't imagine growing up without Fergus and Dane."
She does not mention Gil. It seems wrong, now, to bring that up. The childhood games that gave way to stolen kisses and hidden moments that should have never happened. But they did, and she wouldn't do it any different if given the chance. It's just… not the right time.
"I had Chamberlain," Cailan says, thinking about it. "And my mother, until she died. After that… I had to grow up sometime, I guess."
She says nothing about his childish innocence and happy-go-lucky attitude. There's damage there, she's starting to think. It shows itself sometimes, in little comments about Maric and life after Rowan. It isn't her place to pry. Maybe someday, but not today. She asks instead, "Did you leave the city much?"
"Not as much as I'd have liked," he murmurs.
They've almost made it to the palace doors. The white-washed stone glows bloody in the sunset, and if it's not the most unsettling thing Cailan's ever seen in his life, he doesn't know what is. Her hand is warm in his, all her bones so small and light, and he thinks that she's the most breakable person he's ever known, but also the strongest.
Maker, the clouds are rolling in already.
"We should get settled in," Elissa says, looking up at the sky. "This is going to be ugly if it's moving in this fast."
"Probably," Cailan says, more to himself than to her. Elissa tilts her face up to look at him, the bloody-red sunset sinking into her hair, and for a moment he hardly recognizes her. The light takes her away from herself, he thinks, and there's something tragic about it. He catches her chin and bends to kiss her. It's the only way he knows to bring her back.
She tastes, as always, like coming home.
Elissa answers the kiss, pulling him back when he starts to draw away. The tie in his hair comes loose beneath her fingers, and the gold falls like fire around her. Kissing him is like drinking in sunlight, and inevitably she wants more of it. He's like morning, almost, happy and a bit of light after the worst darkness.
"Hello there," Cailan says. His forearms come up to cage her in against him, and they're pressed back against the wall, though he doesn't know how they got there. She really is lovely, he thinks, half-dazed, and sinks down to kiss her again.
In the distance, thunder roars. Lightning is sharp on the wind, and she draws back enough to say, "Inside. Now," because she really doesn't fancy being outside when a sea squall rolls up. Even if it is with him and the pleasant things that always come from kisses like that.
"Bossy," Cailan murmurs, smiling against her skin. He hitches her up, hands around her thighs, and lifts her until her legs lock around his waist. "Am I to carry you over the threshold?"
Hooking her ankles together, she grins down at him. "If you can brave Soris and Shianni, then yes, I think so."
"They'll survive," he grins around the words, and kisses her, kisses her again. She's warm skin under his palms and sweet-smelling hair in his nose, a bright little quirk of laughter at the mouth and the soft fall of skirts. Maker, she's beautiful.
Cailan carries her inside.
—
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tbc.
wren: it's only been 84 years
alma: yo, a wild qeau update appears! not like we're working on chapter 21 or anything
