You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference.
Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have
to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to
have other people trust you, you must feel that you
can trust them, too-even when you're in the dark.
Even when you're falling. ~ Mitch Albom
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Cole led the way into the garden, Melori following in his wake, feeling weary, damp and dirty. It was dark, the stars wheeling overhead above a few stray clouds, and the cloister around the perimeter of the garden was empty. It felt somehow eerie at this time of night and she dropped onto one of the benches with a tired sigh. Her eyes filled with tears and she shivered, lifting a hand to wipe at damp cheeks, almost angry at herself for feeling sad that Revas was gone.
"Librarian? Where have you been?" Varric asked from the garden path. "Are you all right?"
"I ...," she began, drying her eyes as quickly as she could on her dirty sleeve. She chose the safest thing to say, her voice breaking a little on the words. "My cat died."
"So ... wait. You were gone for five days because of your cat?" Varric asked, one of his eyebrows lifting nearly to his hairline. "The Nightingale's gonna love that one. Do you know how many people have been searching for you?"
"I've been gone for five days?" Melori asked, her face draining of color. "No, I wasn't ..." she clamped her mouth shut at the look on Varric's face.
"Solas said the last time he saw you, you were down at the ruin along the road. I mean, you do look like something the nug dragged in …," the dwarf explained, coming closer until he almost uncomfortably near, his noise wrinkling. "Oh, Maker. Quite a perfume you've got on you there. You … kind of smell like the Fade."
"I returned from the ruin yester … um … the day Solas and I went there," She explained, still trying to process the idea that she'd been away for five days when it hadn't even felt like one. "I was barely in the Great Hall before Cole took me to the eluvian. It was open. He said my cat had gone into it – so I went through to find Revas. Except, once I did, I wasn't where I thought I would be. I was in the Fade."
"I'm gonna guess your cat wasn't an ordinary cat, was he?" Varric muttered.
"I'm afraid not, no," Melori answered, staring down at the gravel path beneath her feet. It didn't feel real, not exactly. "I didn't know I'd been gone so long."
"Cole told Dorian you were lost," Varric said, shaking his head. "But he kept saying shit like 'It's like the Fade but it can't be!' – not that you were stuck in the eluvian. So Leliana sent her people out to comb the mountainside, looking for a body. When no one found you, she looked further. I think maybe you want to talk to her first before you do anything else."
Melori sat in a chair next to the fire in Josephine's office watching specks of dust meander through a sun beam. The room smelled of lemon oil and Orlesian herb sachets tossed into the fire, warm and comforting. She'd managed a quick clean-up and a change of clothes, but she still felt grimy, sore, and sick with worry. Leliana had taken one look at her and sent her down to the baths, but she'd had scant time to really clean up before she'd been called to the office and left cooling her heels.
The certainty that this was her last night in Skyhold had taken hold of her with a vengeance and she had only managed to stay in her chair by sheer force of will. The only thing she feared more than being told to go was how Cullen would respond, and she was very carefully avoiding the thought of it. Sitting in the chair like an apprentice outside Irving's office, Melori felt as though she were a little girl again, sent to the top of the tower for not listening to her lessons and crying through the night for her mamae.
The door opened and the Inquisitor stepped through. Melori stood to her feet, smoothing down her tunic with a nervous hand. "My Lady."
"Well, I've never seen quite that expression on your face before," the other woman stated, a brow lifting. "I'm not about to order you to your death, Melori."
"Are you going to tell me to leave?" She wanted to get that out of the way immediately, so she wouldn't stand there wondering.
"It was discussed and immediately discarded. No one wishes you to lose you, least of all me. Solas knew of the creature and thought it safe enough, Dorian agreed, and Cole was equally unaware of its intentions. Morrigan has argued that you are not to be held at fault for the actions of a creature obviously intent on corrupting you or for the for traveling through the eluvian, considering she lost Kieran through the thing soon after we returned to Skyhold."
"But … she was not at the castle when I walked through. How was it opened?" Melori asked, hiding her relief in curiosity. "Revas was not that powerful."
"It was likely her mother, Flemeth," The Inquisitor said, a shift in her tone catching Melori's attention for a brief moment before she continued. "Morrigan is looking into it. In the meantime, Leliana said she requires your services and she has refused to give you up. Not that any of us really required her to do so."
"I see," her fingers were knotted together, not certain if she felt relieved or terrified. There'd been no mention of Cullen. She tried to breathe, to relax, to think that it would be all right after all.
"Melori," The Inquisitor's voice caught her out of reverie, and she looked up once more. "Are there any more secrets? Anything else we ought to know?"
Fen'Harel came immediately to mind, but Melori let the thought go immediately. It wasn't her secret to tell, not yet, and Solas was an ally. If it became necessary, she would, but ... she sighed and shook her head. "There are a few things," she admitted. "But I imagine they'd be of more use to Leliana. Nothing regarding demons, my Lady."
"Well, that's something. We've had quite enough of demons for a long, long time, haven't we?"
Varric was sitting on a bench next to one of the large dwarven statues, his notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. He was writing rapidly, pausing when she appeared, pen lifting from the page. They eyed one another until he sighed heavily, "Curly's not happy. He's had some pretty bad experiences with demons. We all did, in Kirkwall."
"He has every right to be," she acknowledged, her stomach turning.
"I know that expression. We all had that look in our eyes after the Gallows. And I'm not likely to forget Adamant any time soon - not the way it smelled or the way it felt."
"Nor I," Melori whispered, lips compressed. She looked away, trying to catch a breath that was suddenly difficult and tight. "At least I know where the next blow's coming from, right? He waited for me in the Temple of Mythal, terrified I would wake up possessed. And now?" Her lips twisted. "Now I prove even less trustworthy. A demon has been leading me around by the nose for nearly a decade."
"Hey now," he chided, patting her elbow. "Don't give up on Curly. The man's no coward ... I mean, he's with you - an apostate mage who insists she's a librarian. For a guy with his history? That takes balls."
Melori blinked at him. "I think I ought to have been drunk for that one, Varric."
He chuckled, "Yeah, yeah. Just remember, Cullen doesn't do anything lightly."
His office door was standing open, the backs of his captains standing like a tall forest between her and the desk. Melori leaned against the wall and wished she'd thought to drain another health potion. Her sides ached where the former cat had stabbed her, and she felt sick still, unable to get the stench of the Fade out of her nose. The dreaming side of the Fade was far more pleasant to the nose. Listening to the sound of Cullen's voice, made her feel a little less nervous, though that would likely change once he saw her.
When they'd all been dismissed, she knocked on the door, catching a glimpse of his bright hair as he looked up from his desk, the sunlight striking his armor at the perfect angle. Wrapping her arms across her waist, she shivered a little as his brows came down and she stepped into the office. He came around the desk, passing her and shutting the door behind her without a word.
"I …" she began, turning to look up at him. Her mouth closed on the words at the look in his eyes, at the heat in his gaze, the sadness there. Her stomach clenched.
"Something you want to tell me?" He asked, his voice remarkably calm, still standing close enough to touch. "Maybe something along the lines of, 'We were traveling with a possessed cat and I never bothered to mention it to you.' Or, perhaps, I went through an eluvian and didn't bother to tell anyone where I was going except the spirit boy who reads everyone's minds?"
"I'm sorry. Cullen, I-"
"I understand why you would not trust me, Melori," he interrupted her, turning away and moving across the room, his shoulders bent beneath his armor. "I know what kind of man I was, but it will never be enough, will it?"
"You're wrong! That's not it at all" Melori exclaimed. "I didn't tell you because at the time Revas appeared, everything was new between us. I didn't want to ruin it by telling you I had a spirit following me around. I wasn't even sure what to make of it myself. Please, this is my fault, not yours."
"I cannot talk about this now," he said, meeting her eyes across the room. "If you have not heard, Blackwall has lived beneath an even darker cloak than your own. The Inquisitor will sit in judgment on him tomorrow and we have had a long journey home."
In the early hours several mornings later, Melori lay sprawled in bed, her face half buried in a pillow, sick and still awake no matter how she tried to sleep. She'd spent the last few nights not sleeping. When she did, a variety of nightmares danced through her head, exacerbated by the lack of the cat's familiar weight across her legs or the warmth of a familiar presence at her side. Lying alone and chilled, the fire having long gone out, she finally gave up and climbed out of bed. Pulling on her clothes and grabbing her sheathed bade - the old one that didn't turn her into a beacon of wizardly lightning - she shuffled out the door and down to the lower courtyard through the silent castle.
Standing in the dark of the early mornings in the sawdust of the sparring ring, she moved through each one of the forms until her back was aching and the nausea was gone. Imagining the training dummy was by turns Gallus, Corypheus, or something from her nightmares, Melori fell into the depths of the movements, watching the things that frightened her from a distance, understanding the shape and weight of them without connecting herself to the fear of the thing. There were so many, small and large, but only a few that really mattered: losing someone else she valued, losing her place in Skyhold, losing Cullen ...
Her grip faltered on the blade and she struck the dummy at the wrong angle, sending herself staggering to the side, cursing beneath her breath. It was the one thing she wasn't ready to face, but it was inevitable, wasn't it? They'd not spoken since that day in his tower, and she had not slept since. Every day she went to her study and worked through whatever Leliana gave her to do. Every night she spent going over and over her Harrowing, the expedition to Tevinter, the escape in the Korcari Wilds, her decisions since joining the Inquisition, and everything she'd done with Revas ... trying to find the thread where her decisions might have been her own, untainted by the spirit following her around.
Melori found no help for herself. No hope that he would see her as anything more than a fool. As Varric had said, Cullen did not do anything lightly, and Melori's actions had already cost her more dearly than she could count. It seemed fitting that she would lose the him, as well. She felt cut adrift, without oars or rudder or wind for her sails, and the longer they were apart, the more she realized that he had become integral to whatever it was that kept her going forward.
The light was lifting as the sun rose behind the mountains, the sky shading brighter by degrees. Melori slid the blade back into its sheath and climbed over the fence, dropping into the grass on the other side. Her head felt cloudy with exhaustion. Lowering her head, she turned in a circle, trying to think what to do. Should she stay and hope to hide away in her office, doing whatever she was told? Hadn't hiding got her into this? She longed, sudden and deeply, that Caro were here to tell her what to do.
Little bolts of electricity were racing across her skin, and she closed her eyes, willing the power into her core. She needed to get away, to go somewhere quiet and lonely for a space.
"Are you certain about this?" Dorian asked, watching Melori and one of the stable boys load her gear. There was more than usual, this time. Books, bags, her armor and blades, and everything else she would need to live. Leliana had agreed to store the things she could not take with her.
"I am certain," she answered, looking over her shoulder at him. "Would you stay under the same circumstances?"
He sighed and shook his head, "You're acting too hastily. What if you misread him?"
"I won't be gone forever."
"You're behaving as though you will be," He muttered, frowning through his moustache. "And who will I study with while you're away? That awful creature running the other side of the upstairs library?"
"I'm only going to Crestwood," she said, giving him a look. "There's a lot of lore there, you know. An elven cavern where the wyverns used to breed, underwater dwarven ruins ... all sorts of things. You can visit me there."
"But ..."
"Dorian," Melori turned and looked up at him, her hands on her hips, "I have to go."
"You're not coming back," He insisted, grabbing her by the shoulders. "I know that expression. I used to see it in the mirror every morning until I finally left home to come to the barbaric south. You can't leave me, Melori! You were my little bit of civilization in a strange world!"
"Lady Vivienne will have to suffice, I'm afraid," Melori smiled, reaching out to hug him. She kissed his cheek and stepped back, wishing she felt brave enough to stay. "For what it's worth, you've been as good a friend to me as Caro was, and ... that's the highest praise I can give anyone. I'll miss you."
"Write me," he insisted. "I don't care if you're fighting off dragons with a toothpick, write me every day or I will come to Crestwood and bring you back here by force."
"I promise," she answered, reaching up to swing herself into the saddle. Until she was out of the castle, she could not cry, she told herself, urging Tempest into a trot and through the courtyard, trying not to see anything or to look at what she was leaving behind. She made it through the gate and down the causeway before the tears began.
The tavern along the road near Haven had become a staging ground for Inquisition troops, and Melori followed the road till she came to it, sliding down off of Tempest's back and handing the reins to one of the soldiers who ran out to greet her. He smiled and gave her a crisp salute before leading Tempest over to the stables, which had Melori blinking after him for a moment - she'd never been saluted before in her life.
"Melori Enara!" Captain Jamesin, the man in charge of Haven's troops, exclaimed when she'd entered the tavern proper. He came forward with a smile that bristled his ginger moustache. "We received the Nightingale's communiqué that you would arriving soon. I hope you made good time with the new recruits?"
"The way was much shorter than the last time I traveled between Haven and Skyhold," she answered, smiling a little when he laughed. "They were all quite well behaved."
"Glad to hear it," he chuckled. "How can we help you?"
"Well, I'm to join the next group to go to Crestwood, though I know they won't arrive for another two days," she explained. "IN the meantime, I thought I would try to get into the Temple Archive before I moved on. I was working there when the Breach opened, and I'd like to retrieve some of my equipment and anything that survived intact."
"That could be arranged," he nodded. "I know they've managed to clear a lot of the debris from the tunnels up that way, so I'm sure we can get you in and out without any trouble. If you're willing to go in the morning, I'll arrange a group to go with you."
"I'd appreciate that, Captain."
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NEXT: Don't panic. Or do. But I'd recommend not. Panicking, that is. :-D
