It was the day after the event in the Chantry that Lucien decided he needed to go check on Sophia, and he managed out of some sense of⊠he wasnât sure what, to wait until about midday to do it. After much longer in consideration than he usually spent, he decided to forgo the armor entirely, leaving himself attired in a dark blue shirt and simple brown breeches. Because it was impossible for him to allow himself to go anywhere without some backup form of protection, he tucked a long knife into one of his boots, but that was it. The battles that would be waged today were of a very different kind from those of yesterday, and he knew himself well enough to know that he would find them much more difficult.
It didnât really surprise him that on the way to the Keep, he managed to espy both Nostariel and Ashton, and fell in with the pair of them as they made their way up to Hightown. Very little was said, perhaps because there was very little to say. Though he could not deny that some part of himself did want to speak to Sophia alone, he could not think it a poor thing that she would know that she had many friends to lean on at this time in her life. Whatever would help her most, he had no doubt they would be willing to do, and that assurance went some way to laying to rest his unease about the whole thing. He had trouble remembering what people had told him, when his mother had died. He doubted any of it had helped much, as he seemed to remember his grief being a very personal thingâshared, perhaps, by others who had known and loved her, but still fundamentally solitary. He carried it with him even now, and he doubted it would be much comfort to tell someone that no, it never really did go away.
The three reached the Keep and made their way straight to Seneschal Bran, bypassing what little line there was. The death of the Viscountâs son was understandably barring most official business, especially that which couldnât be conducted through people like Bran himself. It hardly seemed necessary to say who they were there for or why; the looks on their faces would do that well enough.
The Keep was relatively deserted today, as the public had been informed that all the Viscount's business had been temporarily postponed, and that the Viscount himself would be seeing no visitors, in order to have the time and privacy needed to mourn the passing of his only son. There was no official public policy on the Viscount's daughter, but Bran seemed glad to see the arrival of her closest friends. He greeted them, grimly informing them that Sophia had more or less collapsed into her bed upon her return to the Keep, and that she had yet to emerge from her private quarters for the entirety of the day so far, though he had chanced to hear weeping, and knew that she was awake. Bran felt that it could hardly hurt if friends as close as these were allowed to check on her, though out of respect for her privacy, he asked them to wait while he confirmed with the Viscount's daughter that visitors would be acceptable. After a short while he returned, speculating that it might be best if only one of them went to speak with her first, so as not to surround her immediately in her own room. Naturally, Lucien was the choice.
At some point, Sophia had shrugged out of her bloodstained clothes and into a nightgown, and the clothes she'd worn under her armor through the slaughter of the fanatics still lay piled beside her bed, speckled crimson. Sophia had hastily washed herself of the blood, at least from her face, though she had missed a spot on the side of her neck. She was seated in her bed, the covers still thrown over her legs, her golden hair a disheveled mess, her eyes red from weeping. Though she had not left her bed all day, it looked as though she hadn't gotten much rest at all.
It hurt his heart to see.
Lucien entered quietly, not because he wished his presence to remain hidden, but perhaps out of some oddly-displaced sense of respect or empathy. It hardly seemed the time for anything but the greatest of care, anyway, and that seeped quite a bit into his body language, which lacked the general solidity and straightforwardness to which those around him were accustomed. If anything, his mannerismsâsloped shoulders, pulled inward, hands somewhat uncomfortably dangling at his sides, slightly-bowed headâwere those of a much smaller person, uncomfortable in his own skin and slightly awkward. Something he had not been for many years.
Gingerly, he took a seat, pulling the chair close to her bedside, leaning his elbows on his knees and letting his forearms hang loosely against one another. It mitigated the discomfited air a bit, but still he swallowed thickly as he studied her face for a moment. âSophiaââ he found he didnât know how to end the sentence. He felt quite useless at the moment, something heâd always hated. With an uncertainty that did not become him, he reached forward just a bit, placing his hand over hers. âIf you wantâneed us to go, me to go, I will.â The last thing he wanted was to be another problem right now, and he knew enough to understand that everyone grieved differently.
Immediately Sophia was aware of the fact that she hadn't spoken a word to anyone since discovering her brother's body. She had cleaved through the unprepared zealots with a silent, murderous resolve, watched emotionlessly from the floor as Elthina refused to stand by Petrice and then while Amalia opened her throat from ear to ear. She sat in silence by Saemus while the Viscount was summoned to the Chantry, watched in silence as he wept beside her, walked in numb silence back to the Keep with him. She had slipped into her room, in silence, and shut the door, making the world disappear. Then she had curled up under the covers of her bed, as close to retreating back into the womb as she could get. It could not last, of course.
Still, there was no more comfortable a way for her to return to the world of the living and the speaking than his touch, and she pulled her knees to her chest, resting her hands and his atop them, letting her head fall until her forehead touched his knuckles. Lucien was there for her, she knew, always there for her, as much as he allowed himself to be. She remembered when finding a man she would finally allow to court her was the greatest of her troubles. Another life. Or was that yesterday? She did not know. "Stay, please."
The words came out as a hoarse whisper, and she attempted to clear her throat, which had been tightly constricted as though choking her from the moment she had laid eyes on the note Saemus had left, the last words he would relay to his family before dying. His last action in this world had been to leave them behind. She could not help but hate him for it, and hate herself for not preventing it. She should have seen the signs, known he was heading down that path... "I don't know where I lost my way," she confessed to Lucien's hand. "I forgot why I started fighting in the first place. It was all for my family, to relieve my father, to take up the duties my brother never desired. I neglected him instead."
She recalled bitterly when she had been heading out the door on the way to deal with bandits on the coast, when Sparrow had come along, the argument she had held with her brother. He had seemed so stupid at the time, so foolish, and he still did... but was she not just as great a fool for not recognizing the signs, growing within him? "Now he is dead, and my father will not recover. Everything I did only worsened their burdens."
Lucienâs hand tightened around Sophiaâs as she spoke, his head tipped faintly to the side in consideration. âWe both know thatâs not true,â he said, the volume little above a murmur but enunciated clearly all the same. âYour love for them is obvious in everything you do. If you forgot, it is only in the way that people forget that they are breathing.â Instinct. So natural that it pervades everything in a way that was seen most clearly by outside eyes. He knew of no one that would deny her devotion to her father and brother. Had anyone ever done so, he would happily set them straight, because he had seen it firsthand, and knew it for truth.
His free hand moved, brushing the curtain of her hair back to tuck behind an ear, finding the spot of blood that remained and brushing it away with the callused pad of his thumb. It was hardly proprietary, any of it, but at precisely this moment, he cared not at all. âYou have burdened no one but yourself, and you have carried that weight with a grace kings and queens should envy.â He didnât really like to consider what shape the city would be in without her, and likely, all of this would have boiled over much sooner without her standing back there to stem the tide. These were not the traits of a woman lost; not in the slightest.
She was crying again, she realized, as a second tear fell onto Lucien's hand. Sophia looked away, dabbing at her eyes with her blanket. She wanted so badly to find some kind of hope, some happiness, in Lucien's words. He always seemed to know how to instruct her when she was doubting, suffering, or unsure. She could not find it this time. It was as though black clouds circled around her heart, striking with deadly bolts when anything resembling hope came near. "It was not obvious to Saemus," she choked out at last.
She could see the good that she had done for herself over the past years, since she boldly decided to take up her blade and set an example for her city, proving that she was worthy of the crown she was to inherit. She'd grown confident, fearless, strong. She learned how to balance decisiveness and justice with compassion. Where she began with a tunneled view of the world, she now could see clearly in a much broader arc. But Kirkwall, and her family, only seemed to suffer the more she fought. She had allowed her brother to become distant, and he had paid for it with his life. Her father would have little chance of standing up to the combined pressures of the Templars and the Qunari both after the passing of his son, and the city seemed doomed for war because of it.
Sophia had carried the burdens gracefully, but they had crushed her in the end, all the same.
She fought back a sob as though it was an army of Qunari, and of course she lost, tipping over sideways to fall into Lucien, placing her head against his chest as her entire body began to tremble. "Mother was such a fool, to fall for a nobleman," she sputtered. "She sold her freedom for love. And my own." The way Dairren had spoken of it when Sophia was a young girl, they lived a simpler life, a happier one. It was a life Sophia had never realized how much she truly envied.
Sometimes, there was simply nothing to be said. Some things, some feelings, were too deep and rooted for words to do anything at all. There was really no purpose in using them, and so Lucien did not try to tell her otherwise. He knew not her brotherâs mind, nor even if it would have made a difference had she behaved in any way differently. He knew that she had been doing the best she could, to contend with more problems than anyone should ever really have to face, and perhaps she knew it too. But grief was not the sort of thing that ceded to logicâhe knew that very well. How many people had told him that his motherâs death was not his fault? That what had happened to his comrades, his best friend, was tragic and unavoidable, that heâd done the right thing in sending him to it? He didnât remember, because he hadnât cared, then. He didnât even really care now. The emotion was not defeated that way, and it would take time, in this case as in every other heâd encountered.
âI know,â he murmured, not for the sake of agreement, but rather commiseration. He had to admit, that one struck a little close to home, but he pushed that aside for the moment. Shifting slightly, he adjusted such that her angle against him was no longer so awkward, placing an arm around her back. âI know.â His free hand moved to the crown of her head, then down, stroking in soothing, repetitive motions as he recalled from half-hazy memories of his childhood. âIâm so sorry, Sophia.â He wished there was something, anything, he could do to make it easier for her. But there were no easy or magical solutions for this, and it would hurt her no matter what he did.
A while later, Lucien took his leave, indicating to the others that it was perhaps best if Sophia was allowed to rest for the moment. She knew theyâd come, and for now, that would simply have to be enough.
It didnât really surprise him that on the way to the Keep, he managed to espy both Nostariel and Ashton, and fell in with the pair of them as they made their way up to Hightown. Very little was said, perhaps because there was very little to say. Though he could not deny that some part of himself did want to speak to Sophia alone, he could not think it a poor thing that she would know that she had many friends to lean on at this time in her life. Whatever would help her most, he had no doubt they would be willing to do, and that assurance went some way to laying to rest his unease about the whole thing. He had trouble remembering what people had told him, when his mother had died. He doubted any of it had helped much, as he seemed to remember his grief being a very personal thingâshared, perhaps, by others who had known and loved her, but still fundamentally solitary. He carried it with him even now, and he doubted it would be much comfort to tell someone that no, it never really did go away.
The three reached the Keep and made their way straight to Seneschal Bran, bypassing what little line there was. The death of the Viscountâs son was understandably barring most official business, especially that which couldnât be conducted through people like Bran himself. It hardly seemed necessary to say who they were there for or why; the looks on their faces would do that well enough.
The Keep was relatively deserted today, as the public had been informed that all the Viscount's business had been temporarily postponed, and that the Viscount himself would be seeing no visitors, in order to have the time and privacy needed to mourn the passing of his only son. There was no official public policy on the Viscount's daughter, but Bran seemed glad to see the arrival of her closest friends. He greeted them, grimly informing them that Sophia had more or less collapsed into her bed upon her return to the Keep, and that she had yet to emerge from her private quarters for the entirety of the day so far, though he had chanced to hear weeping, and knew that she was awake. Bran felt that it could hardly hurt if friends as close as these were allowed to check on her, though out of respect for her privacy, he asked them to wait while he confirmed with the Viscount's daughter that visitors would be acceptable. After a short while he returned, speculating that it might be best if only one of them went to speak with her first, so as not to surround her immediately in her own room. Naturally, Lucien was the choice.
At some point, Sophia had shrugged out of her bloodstained clothes and into a nightgown, and the clothes she'd worn under her armor through the slaughter of the fanatics still lay piled beside her bed, speckled crimson. Sophia had hastily washed herself of the blood, at least from her face, though she had missed a spot on the side of her neck. She was seated in her bed, the covers still thrown over her legs, her golden hair a disheveled mess, her eyes red from weeping. Though she had not left her bed all day, it looked as though she hadn't gotten much rest at all.
It hurt his heart to see.
Lucien entered quietly, not because he wished his presence to remain hidden, but perhaps out of some oddly-displaced sense of respect or empathy. It hardly seemed the time for anything but the greatest of care, anyway, and that seeped quite a bit into his body language, which lacked the general solidity and straightforwardness to which those around him were accustomed. If anything, his mannerismsâsloped shoulders, pulled inward, hands somewhat uncomfortably dangling at his sides, slightly-bowed headâwere those of a much smaller person, uncomfortable in his own skin and slightly awkward. Something he had not been for many years.
Gingerly, he took a seat, pulling the chair close to her bedside, leaning his elbows on his knees and letting his forearms hang loosely against one another. It mitigated the discomfited air a bit, but still he swallowed thickly as he studied her face for a moment. âSophiaââ he found he didnât know how to end the sentence. He felt quite useless at the moment, something heâd always hated. With an uncertainty that did not become him, he reached forward just a bit, placing his hand over hers. âIf you wantâneed us to go, me to go, I will.â The last thing he wanted was to be another problem right now, and he knew enough to understand that everyone grieved differently.
Immediately Sophia was aware of the fact that she hadn't spoken a word to anyone since discovering her brother's body. She had cleaved through the unprepared zealots with a silent, murderous resolve, watched emotionlessly from the floor as Elthina refused to stand by Petrice and then while Amalia opened her throat from ear to ear. She sat in silence by Saemus while the Viscount was summoned to the Chantry, watched in silence as he wept beside her, walked in numb silence back to the Keep with him. She had slipped into her room, in silence, and shut the door, making the world disappear. Then she had curled up under the covers of her bed, as close to retreating back into the womb as she could get. It could not last, of course.
Still, there was no more comfortable a way for her to return to the world of the living and the speaking than his touch, and she pulled her knees to her chest, resting her hands and his atop them, letting her head fall until her forehead touched his knuckles. Lucien was there for her, she knew, always there for her, as much as he allowed himself to be. She remembered when finding a man she would finally allow to court her was the greatest of her troubles. Another life. Or was that yesterday? She did not know. "Stay, please."
The words came out as a hoarse whisper, and she attempted to clear her throat, which had been tightly constricted as though choking her from the moment she had laid eyes on the note Saemus had left, the last words he would relay to his family before dying. His last action in this world had been to leave them behind. She could not help but hate him for it, and hate herself for not preventing it. She should have seen the signs, known he was heading down that path... "I don't know where I lost my way," she confessed to Lucien's hand. "I forgot why I started fighting in the first place. It was all for my family, to relieve my father, to take up the duties my brother never desired. I neglected him instead."
She recalled bitterly when she had been heading out the door on the way to deal with bandits on the coast, when Sparrow had come along, the argument she had held with her brother. He had seemed so stupid at the time, so foolish, and he still did... but was she not just as great a fool for not recognizing the signs, growing within him? "Now he is dead, and my father will not recover. Everything I did only worsened their burdens."
Lucienâs hand tightened around Sophiaâs as she spoke, his head tipped faintly to the side in consideration. âWe both know thatâs not true,â he said, the volume little above a murmur but enunciated clearly all the same. âYour love for them is obvious in everything you do. If you forgot, it is only in the way that people forget that they are breathing.â Instinct. So natural that it pervades everything in a way that was seen most clearly by outside eyes. He knew of no one that would deny her devotion to her father and brother. Had anyone ever done so, he would happily set them straight, because he had seen it firsthand, and knew it for truth.
His free hand moved, brushing the curtain of her hair back to tuck behind an ear, finding the spot of blood that remained and brushing it away with the callused pad of his thumb. It was hardly proprietary, any of it, but at precisely this moment, he cared not at all. âYou have burdened no one but yourself, and you have carried that weight with a grace kings and queens should envy.â He didnât really like to consider what shape the city would be in without her, and likely, all of this would have boiled over much sooner without her standing back there to stem the tide. These were not the traits of a woman lost; not in the slightest.
She was crying again, she realized, as a second tear fell onto Lucien's hand. Sophia looked away, dabbing at her eyes with her blanket. She wanted so badly to find some kind of hope, some happiness, in Lucien's words. He always seemed to know how to instruct her when she was doubting, suffering, or unsure. She could not find it this time. It was as though black clouds circled around her heart, striking with deadly bolts when anything resembling hope came near. "It was not obvious to Saemus," she choked out at last.
She could see the good that she had done for herself over the past years, since she boldly decided to take up her blade and set an example for her city, proving that she was worthy of the crown she was to inherit. She'd grown confident, fearless, strong. She learned how to balance decisiveness and justice with compassion. Where she began with a tunneled view of the world, she now could see clearly in a much broader arc. But Kirkwall, and her family, only seemed to suffer the more she fought. She had allowed her brother to become distant, and he had paid for it with his life. Her father would have little chance of standing up to the combined pressures of the Templars and the Qunari both after the passing of his son, and the city seemed doomed for war because of it.
Sophia had carried the burdens gracefully, but they had crushed her in the end, all the same.
She fought back a sob as though it was an army of Qunari, and of course she lost, tipping over sideways to fall into Lucien, placing her head against his chest as her entire body began to tremble. "Mother was such a fool, to fall for a nobleman," she sputtered. "She sold her freedom for love. And my own." The way Dairren had spoken of it when Sophia was a young girl, they lived a simpler life, a happier one. It was a life Sophia had never realized how much she truly envied.
Sometimes, there was simply nothing to be said. Some things, some feelings, were too deep and rooted for words to do anything at all. There was really no purpose in using them, and so Lucien did not try to tell her otherwise. He knew not her brotherâs mind, nor even if it would have made a difference had she behaved in any way differently. He knew that she had been doing the best she could, to contend with more problems than anyone should ever really have to face, and perhaps she knew it too. But grief was not the sort of thing that ceded to logicâhe knew that very well. How many people had told him that his motherâs death was not his fault? That what had happened to his comrades, his best friend, was tragic and unavoidable, that heâd done the right thing in sending him to it? He didnât remember, because he hadnât cared, then. He didnât even really care now. The emotion was not defeated that way, and it would take time, in this case as in every other heâd encountered.
âI know,â he murmured, not for the sake of agreement, but rather commiseration. He had to admit, that one struck a little close to home, but he pushed that aside for the moment. Shifting slightly, he adjusted such that her angle against him was no longer so awkward, placing an arm around her back. âI know.â His free hand moved to the crown of her head, then down, stroking in soothing, repetitive motions as he recalled from half-hazy memories of his childhood. âIâm so sorry, Sophia.â He wished there was something, anything, he could do to make it easier for her. But there were no easy or magical solutions for this, and it would hurt her no matter what he did.
A while later, Lucien took his leave, indicating to the others that it was perhaps best if Sophia was allowed to rest for the moment. She knew theyâd come, and for now, that would simply have to be enough.