Post #2454338 in The City of Chains, a roleplay on RPG

There were far more children in the Alienage than she could ever remember there being. Amalia did not, perhaps, seem at first glance the kind of person who liked children, but in fact she found them in most cases to be considerably less odious than adults. Children still had, no matter how dire their circumstances, a kind of way of looking at things that suggested that not all in them that was good or curious or creative had yet been snuffed. It was a quality she liked, and as for the rest, well… they did not look at her with the same mistrust as their parents tended to, nor did they know enough to be put off by her brusque mannerisms. They were dauntless, brave because they did not know what to fear.

She appeared much different from usual—though her garments were still more practical than aesthetically-pleasing, she now dressed in a way that could be considered more appropriate for both season and setting. There were no sleeves on her tunic, exposing the crisscross patterns of pale scarring on dark arms. Her face was uncovered, and her hair confined only to a tail rather than the severe plait she conventionally used. She was even barefoot, but the thing that had not changed was the only thing the young ones really cared about anyway, and that was the music. Her harp was currently in the hands of a boy of perhaps ten, one of the newcomers to the Alienage, and though she occasionally stepped in to correct an overzealous comment from one of her other “pupils,” what was really happening was that the children that had lived here for longer were teaching him the basics of how to play it, as she had taught them.

It was easier for him to forget that he did not belong here when he was just one of them. When they grinned at him with gap-teeth and one particularly-bossy little girl moved his hands into place lower on the strings with an emphatic ”That’s how you do it.” Her lips quirked up into the ghost of a smile, but she said nothing, allowing them to guide one another as far as they could, and her face remained impassive even when one or another would look over at her, as though for guidance or approval. They were not dissuaded by this, as most had grown used to it by now. She was hard to please, but she was also difficult to upset. It seemed to work somehow, at least in the sense that they strove to do well enough to earn the occasional word of praise or gentle ruffling of hair.

It wasn’t that she could get used to it—it was that she already was.

Her lips were fettered in a rusty smile, slightly hollow but getting better everyday. Some may have said she looked like a husk of who she was, but those who knew her could see her eyes, alight and free at last. Free of the warped creature whispering in her ear canals, gnawing on her thoughts like an old bone. She was feeling better, braver even. Her cheeks were not so sallow anymore, but her bones still showed signs of bird-like angles. Rilien had her on a strict routine of eating and eating and eating—no liquor, for now. She, too, had grown in different directions. Her feverish wanderlust led her here of all places, in Kirkwall, in a place whose chains hung the heaviest and whose dangers often proved fatal. Visiting Amalia had been on her to-do list. Actually making her way to the Alienage had proven far harder than facing any creature, or any demon she'd encountered thus far. She was afraid.

Sparrow pressed her back against the ramshackle building. In truth, before Rapture had taken a semi-permanent residence in her chest-cavity, she'd begun visiting the Alienage on a more frequent basis. Partly to see Aurora, partly to see what Amalia was up to, and the other half was reserved for strict play-time. Romping with the children proved an enjoyable pastime, and she was hardly grown herself. Her immaturity, and inability to take anything seriously, made the Alienage feel like home. She'd ask them questions about Amalia, in exchange for grandiose tales of her embellished adventures. Sometimes, she would bring them tokens from her tales. A tooth there, a shell from the Wounded Coast, or shiny baubles she may have procured from passing merchants. Always telling them to keep them in their hidey-holes, for fear of the squash-nosed baddies clomping around in their armored-suits. As of late, Sparrow hadn't been brave enough to face even them.

She brushed her palms over the brick slabs, breathed in deeply through her nose. Amalia appeared so different these days, uncovered in more ways than one. Vulnerable, perhaps. Like someone was able to peel away her layers, helping her step through a brighter, kinder threshold. It had not been her. She had not been there to see it happen. Had she ever been this way, with the Qunari and their oppressive teachings? As children, even. Had she ever been this comfortable? She itched at her arms, willed her fear into a malleable thing. She'd wear it as a crown, if she had to. Her clothes were fitted, at least. Thanks to Nostariel and Ashton, Sparrow now had an arsenal of garments that suited her smaller stature, and still somehow concealing just how thin she'd become. It did little to conceal how weak she felt, however. No longer could she call herself a warrior. Not by Qun standards, and not by her own.

Another soft sigh escaped her. Dragging herself back to Rilien's shop, blubbering about how she hadn't made it again would only earn her a stern, leveled stare. There was only so much cowardice she could take before plopping herself down in the Hanged Man, so she pushed away from the building and slowly walked around towards the looming tree. Tree of the People, they called it. Suiting name, really. It was far too beautiful to be surrounded by such squalor, but it signified something far more important than Kirkwall would ever understand. Her fingers, clammy and sweaty, trembled through her hairline, brushing snowy strands from her face. All of the carefully constructed words seemed jumbled in her brain, sticking to the roof of her tongue. She'd never been good at words. Never very good at apologizing either. Instead, Sparrow took a seat close enough to inspect what the boy, and the children, were doing. Far enough not to interrupt them, or spout something stupid in front of Amalia. She settled for a hoarse, “You look well.”

Stupid.

While it was true that Amalia was always aware of her surroundings, had been trained to be so from a very tender age, it was also the case that here, she was relaxed. Moreso than she allowed herself to be elsewhere. She was not the only vigilant guardian of this place, and the other of note was someone she trusted more than she truly understood. It was well, though, there was no mistaking that. That weight, the weight of living, did not seem so heavy, when he was near. When she was here. But even in her relaxation, she was attentive, and there were people she knew so well that their treads would always gain her notice at once, like she was magnetized to their very presence. She’d looked at those people, knew them—how they moved, how they worked. How the muscles and sinews were put together over bones, how their mindsets and their histories inscribed themselves into motion.

Some were just distinctive. Others, she knew because she had to, because wariness made forgetting impossible. Still others, she was sensitized to from some measure of respect, of regard, of interest. Sparrow’s was some strange combination of all three: a clomping, graceless thing that did not remind one at all of birds. And yet—this was the one she’d met who flew in the only sense that mattered. Flew away, in fact. Though she did not at first make sign of it, Amalia knew that it was he and no other who approached. She remembered those steps leaving craters in sand.

When he spoke, though, she listened, and then she looked, raising mismatched eyes and flicking them over to where he sat, sharing in the shade of the tree. He was welcome to it—she had no reason to hoard this small piece of tranquility. She pondered the words for a moment, not finding them as stupid as he had, because she supposed they might almost be true. She could not look lovely, not anymore, and she had no reason to care about that. But she supposed she could look well, and that if ever she had, now might just be the time. “I feel well,” she said simply. “But that is not why you have come.” It was as factual and straightforward as anything she ever said, but she forced it no further. Sparrow had to come to things in his own time, or the words would be mangled on the way out of his mouth, and she did not think that either of them much desired that.

Sparrow didn't like to think of it as abandonment. She hadn't abandoned her. How could she? Amalia had always been the only reason she stuck around so long in the first place, but the Qunari were sticklers for regulations, hounding her footsteps like nagging old women and making sure she knew her place as well as the crinkles on her palms. There was no doubt that they had saved her from a fate worse than death and given her a reason to live, but they'd also slapped on a new, shiny pair of chains. Clipped her wings, decided who she would become from the moment she set foot on their lands. She knuckled her nose, resting her hand across her chin. In this light, Amalia is brave and proud and strong. She wonders, halfheartedly, if she is made up of the trappings of a ghost, loudly wandering in wherever she pleases, and leaving just as easily, as if she hadn't even been there at all. She is nowhere near as strong.

Her fingers fell away, trailing the curve of her jawline. Lacking in all of its masculinity, Sparrow wondered what Amalia thought of her now, or if the illusion still held true. Did she still mirror how she wanted to be seen, or did Amalia see an empty copse of who she was, bereft of the strength that made up the carefully cultivated persona she so wanted to become, to embody. Was she a flowerless garden with dying weeds, or a bird in flight, never looking over its shoulder to ponder what she was leaving behind? Not even once. She didn't look over at her, not directly. Instead, Sparrow focused on her boots, and then her bare feet. Her toes, relaxed. Just as she was, she supposed. Within the Qun, one had to always be prepared for the worst, and expect danger in the most unexpected places. Her toes, she thought, might have always been curled, as if ready for a mile-long sprint into battle, or through a grove of wheat-grass. Perhaps, it was people, rather than time, that had changed them both.

She tightened her fists into the folds of her trousers, gripped the fabric tightly and slowly, slowly released. She felt Amalia turn towards her. A small, imperceptible shift between them, as if a scale was tipping in her direction, and still, Sparrow felt like she was unable to meet with her, partway. She had always been teetering on the brink, threatening to collapse the whole thing by leaving the scale altogether, and she had always been resolute in her vigilance, standing like a statue weighing it down until she touched bottom. Cowardice has many stripes, and she often wondered just how many she'd scrubbed off over the years. Apparently, not enough. Her eyes rolled skyward. The leaves almost looked like translucent pieces of parchment, absorbing the sun's orange-red-yellows. Occasionally, spattering down tubes of sunlight, warming the right side of her face. Tipping her head slightly backwards, Sparrow leaned until the brightness temporarily blinded her, then tilted farther. She looked at her, really looked, and for a brief moment, she thought that she was a little afraid of her. Of what she might say, of what she might think.

The transition was abrupt enough to startle her out of her stupor, and Sparrow blinked at her before her words actually sunk in. She was well, she felt well. She supposed that she was happy for her. She'd found something important to her, after all. Important enough to rearrange her entire world, pushing out the pieces that she once thought impossible to move. The Qun, it seemed, had a lesser hold on her once-friend. She was less, and she was more. Lovely, beautiful, star-laced, cloudy-eyed, ocean-tipped—she'd once called her many things, in their youth, and would never deny that they still held true. Perhaps, more so now. Those words, however, were reserved for those she held close to her heart, and she'd strayed further than she ever expected to. She kept her head tipped, meeting those mismatched eyes of hers with her own. Straight to the point, as always. Her frankness had not dulled over the years. It was as sharp as ever, cutting through her facade like a blade.

“You're right. You've always been right, you know,” she admitted, leveled and bare. She searched those eyes for something. Forgiveness, perhaps. But only found age-old patience, polished and refined for slow speakers, for people who bore their feelings like cataclysmic storms. “I'm selfish. I run, I ran. That's what I did, for as long as I can remember.” Running from her past, running from her family, running from responsibilities, and running from heartache. Kirkwall, she supposed, was what happened when she was too tired of running and when her legs refused to budge anymore. Rilien and the others, she knew, showed her the way towards, instead of away. She no longer headed in the opposite direction, passing everyone by. She no longer left letters that never mended hearts, no longer left tracks in the sand to remember her by. No longer left without saying a word, expecting someone important to understand. She ached more acutely than before, but it was different. She was different.

She opened her mouth, drew in a quick breath, plodded on. “I'm hopeless, and I expect forgiveness. I expect a lot from everyone, and I've come here to, to be rebuked or forgiven. I want to apologize, but you know I've never been good at those, either.” There's a consistency in the way her heart drummed in her throat, tightening and loosening all at once. Cords were coming apart, somewhere, she was sure of it. “I came here, I came to tell you that it's impossible. I tried to stay away, because what right do I,” she bit off hoarsely, hunching forward like a leaf curling in on itself, “I hate this. This distance I've made. I hate that you've moved on, and I am apart. I always wanted you to look at me, to look for me. I wanted to talk to you, as we were. I'm selfish. I'm not well.” The bitter bark of laughter never found its way out, but her frown twitched, sharp edged. Even after all these years, it still hurt.

“Would you have run with me, had I asked?”

Amalia sighed, nothing more than a slight quickening in the exhale from her nose, but unmistakably a sigh all the same. She rolled back a little bit, moving fluidly until her back came to rest against the painted bark of the tree. It was an interesting sensation, to lean on something, especially when one was used to meeting nothing but open air when one had the inclination to try. But the tree was there, rough and abrasive through the fabric of her tunic, and she seemed to sink into it a little, until the abrasion was no longer irritating but simply a fact, accepted like any other and not much bother. She had once thought that she had eased against Sparrow’s leaving this way, taking the little metal spike that had driven itself into her chest, melting it down and hammering it into her armor, that emotional plate-mail that kept her defended from future attacks of the same sort. It was how one lived longest: by turning one’s weakness into one’s strength. By never repeating the same mistake twice.

But for all that, she’d managed to do so. Amalia had found some measure of peace with this, and was to whatever extent she could be willing to leave the past in the past and see what she might do with the future, but Sparrow seemed insistent on being that spike, again, driving himself into that vulnerable little chink in the armor that Amalia had opened up in hopes of bettering herself. And here he was, asking questions about what might have been, calling himself selfish and implacable. About that, she could only suppose that he was correct. She had not sought to trouble him by reminding him of what had been. This was why she had not sought him out. He was making a new person of himself, and she’d never had the desire to hamper that. She swore that somewhere, she could hear a chain rattling, but at least it was rusty, now.

“Does it matter?” she asked flatly, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You did not. And I did not. What happened after changed us both. Why is it of concern to you what might have been? Should I ask next where we would have gone, who we would have become, if things had happened that way? We are not those people. That opportunity passed us by. You have become what you are, and I have become what I am. We change still. Should that not be of more interest to you than something that never was and never can be?” She did not understand this fascination with it. “If you hate that we are distant now, make an effort to know me now. Do not speak of then. Speak of this, or of tomorrow, I care not. If you wish me to see you differently, be different. It is not enough to say. You must do.” Perhaps that was harsh, but Amalia was not exactly known for being gentle, and she was the one who had been wronged here. It was not Sparrow who had been left behind.

If all he wished to speak of was what had been or might have been, then Amalia was uninterested. Those reflections had been the ruminations of enough sleepless nights already. She was done wondering if it was some fault of hers that all the people she ever cared about betrayed her. And she was done assuming that it would always work out that way. These were well-traveled paths that she would not walk down again. It was time to seek new ones. She’d break them herself if she had to.

Sparrow watched her press back against the tree, eyes rolling over her shoulder, until she had to readjust herself. Her hair hung in front of her eyes, like snowy tufts, obscuring what she did not want to see. There was a tiredness there, belied in the soft sigh that escaped her lips—exhaustion, annoyance, something like that. It was difficult to piece out, to pluck out the parts that hurt the least. Amalia wore her pain like a suit of armor, smoothing out the plates until they were strong and smooth and always adding more, until it stood like a brick wall. Impenetrable, fortified against future dents. Sparrow wore her lies like a suit of armor, sliding off the metal bits whenever she went to bed. Flesh could not lie. Sinew, muscles and tendons were the greatest truths, beating honesty within her heartbeats. If she refused to speak, in any state of vulnerability, then she could dust off the blackened untruths and pass them off as something palatable. This reaction, perhaps most of all, slid across her neck, tightening like a noose. Amalia always had the awful habit of reaching straight through, instead of taking what was offered from her hands.

Friends were made up of the family you chose. Love was never made of clean pieces. It could piece you back together, however it wished, and leave you with only stories to tell. She was not entirely sure where she'd heard those particular bits, but she expected something different from this encounter. She never wanted to be one of the stories one told, or a thorn that nosed itself between someone's ribs. Somehow, she'd become both. An old wound, reopening. An old scar, still puckered and always a bitter reminder. She was a betrayal, she knew. Months, weeks, days, she'd agonized over the details until she was sure how everything would pan out. But, like always, Sparrow forgot to factor in just how factual, just how brutally honest Amalia was. Her childish expectations floundered, flopped and were speared in place. Of course, it was foolish to wonder how things might have been, where they might have ended up, but it was the only way of rationalizing what she'd done wrong. She could only see so far ahead of her, before everything: the world, her world, tumbled into darkness.

Her hunched shoulders straightened. Muscles bunched in her neck, straining into back. Does it matter? No, she supposed. Wondering what might have been felt like it would have justified leaving in the first place, as if Amalia's choice would have decided whether or not she would have accepted her shackles, head bowed. Those were questions that would never have any answers, for she hadn't asked all those years ago, hadn't given her the choice. If she had asked her, she wondered, would she have left, anyway? She did not know, and as Amalia said, what use was there in wondering? What was done, was done. No amount of reminiscing would return them to that day. Her response came in crestfallen eyebrows, mouth straightening into a line. “I did not mean—” she sputtered, hands braced in her lap, “I did not mean it that way.” This was what she had wanted, after all. Had she not come here expecting no different? Utmost honesty shearing back the brambles sticking to her heart, stripping down her cloak-of-lies and revealing a simple solution. Let go, breathe in. Make a choice, now.

Sparrow was spineless, spiteful, and unrelentingly sporadic. Changes were being made, but not quickly. Her pace was slower, much slower. She did not have her own safe haven, in the Alienage, beneath a beautiful tree, surrounded by a past that still eluded her. She did not have children to teach, or someone like Ithilian guarding her sanctuary. She did not have the kind of tranquility that eased the mind and calmed the soul. But, she did have friends with the kind of loyalty that continued surprising her. “I want to know you, as you are now. I want you to know me, as I am now.” It was the truth, mostly. She could not ask for things to be as they were, for even she was not that thoughtless. They were no longer children. She could not retrieve things she'd long since trampled on, and could not expect Amalia to do the impossible—could not bear squeezing her heart any further. She stared at her fingers, studied her nails. Dirty, like they'd been all those years ago. She opened her palms and squeezed them shut. “I profess, that I do not know where to go from here. I always thought that this would be easier, becoming friends again.”

Amalia was quiet for a moment, curling her toes into the cracked stone beneath her feet. Could she have friends? She had one friend, she knew that much. And perhaps Aurora, Nostariel, and even Lucien might be her friends, if she thought about it a little. The word meant something different than the one she’d grown up knowing. Vulnerability was not something she usually allowed in herself, and to an extent, she knew that she was beyond changing in this respect. No matter how much she had grown, or altered, she would never be open with herself, though she would always give things freely enough. If that was a paradox, it was one she lived. Sparrow was almost the opposite conundrum—he gave the feelings and tender words Amalia did not, but he did not always part with the truth of things as he saw them. It was up to other people to dig if they wanted to find that. Expressive, but fundamentally, as he’d said, selfish. It was a dangerous kind of person to know, in one sense.

Than again… she blinked slowly, tipping her head back so that she regarded the light-stippled canopy of the tree, but then cast her eyes to the side, back to him. He was being honest now, that much was not lost on her. “The things worth doing are seldom easy, and never entirely without risk,” she pointed out. “There are no landmarks one must pass to become a friend, it seems. You will do as you do, and I will be as I am, and we shall see what comes of that.” There was no list of instructions, no tome she could crack open, to tell him what to do to achieve what he wanted. Even if there were, she probably would not have shared it. It would likely defeat the purpose. “Perhaps… I make ventures to your area of residence once a week, to teach. Afterwards, I could visit you.” It was not a grandiose proclamation, nor even an especially startling offer, but it was what she had to give.

Sparrow always wanted more, but she nodded grimly, allowing her smile to soften the edges of her face. For now, it would do. For now, she could wait for Amalia's visits, after her lessons were finished. Anyone willing to trudge through Darktown on their own accord demanded respect, and she felt fortunate that she was being allowed this little thing. This chance to make amends in any way she could, and she would try, spilling herself out until Amalia said that it was enough. Meravas—so shall it be, perhaps now, was best understood. She had always been this way. Even the Qun had recognized it, plucked it out from the array of brokenness and wrapped it around her shoulders. They were alike, in some ways. A soft sigh escaped her lips, and a musing that sounded like, “Then that is enough. Asit tal-eb.”

She swung her legs up, pulling them beneath her. The half-elf leaned towards Amalia, palms face down on the roots of the tree. Her once-friend had grown in all directions. Much stronger, much more self-assured than she could ever wish to be. Taller, as well. She remembered being the taller one, in their youth. She brushed errant strands of blonde hair from her face, studied her mismatched eyes briefly before planting a kiss on her forehead. Quick as a serpent coiling back in on itself, Sparrow hopped down from her perch, arms quickly pinwheeling to make up for her hasty retreat. It would be enough, for now. Perhaps, later, they could speak as they once did. Looking up at the stars, naming them what they wanted and making wishes on those who fell. She could still hear the children tittering as she left, wondering aloud, as children often did, whether or not she was a man or woman.

Snippet #2454338

located in Kirkwall, a part of The City of Chains, one of the many universes on RPG.

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