Considerable time had passed since Sparrowās rather anticlimactic return to the people that had brought her into the world. Rilien could not say he was disappointed, of course, though he did have a sense that this was not how such things were generally expected to proceed. Literature was not exactly replete with characters who were reunited with long-lost relatives and did nothing. And while life was hardly literature, he would perhaps have expected something more dramatic, or at least loud, out of her. But there had been nothing. She had laid eyes on her mother, exchanged words as one would with a stranger, and then gone on with her life.
All in all, it had been mostlyā¦ rational. Rilien would have said that there was very little they could offer each other. They didnāt know one another, to the point where Beragail had actually failed to recognize her own child. Not unforeseen, necessarily, but he would have expected it to produce a very different reaction in Sparrow than the somewhat defeated acceptance it had. For a few days afterward, he had even contemplated returning and revealing the secret, though it was not his to tell. Rilien was hardly concerned with the convention of such things. Her possession should not have been his business either, but he had made it so, because it was something he could fix. If he had thought there was something to be fixed here, that telling Beragail about Sparrow would have helped her in any way, then he would have, he supposed.
That she might resent him was hardly relevant to whether or not he would act in her best interestā¦ was it?
For once, he was not in his shop, toiling away at his craft, nor was he out on Sundermont with Estella, training. He actually had some time to do as he wished this afternoon (not that he did not wish to be doing those other things when he was), and so he had decided to spend it on the roof of the shop, or rather, the roof of his lodging above the shop, his legs crossed underneath him and his lute in his lap, his fingers plucking precise sequences of notes at intermittent intervals. Dusk was falling on Kirkwall, tinting the pale colors of most of the city with vibrant oranges and reds, a few violets and blues. The air smelled less bad up here, and while the city was hardly an aesthetic marvel, the present hue of it was not unpleasant to look at. The breeze stirred his sleeves and his lengthening hairālong enough now to fall slightly past his shoulders. It had been much longer in Orlais.
The sporadic nature of his playing evened out until he was properly strumming a song, a soft tune that started quiet and slow, then gradually increased in tempo and volume. If he closed his eyes, he could remember. Lords and ladies in all the colors under the sun, garlanded in feathers and lace and gossamer, whirling about until their feet could no longer follow, then begging off to the sides to watch those who could yet continue. Until there were only two. Strange, that it could seem at once so long ago and so recent.
Time did not heal all of her wounds. Like a sick dog dragging its hind legs underneath an old, abandoned house, Sparrow slunk back to Kirkwall without so much as a two words to the others, aside from her abashed apology and thanks when they finally returned. Directed to all of them for attending to her selfish needs, but especially towards Ithilian for tracking them down in the first place, when he did not benefit from any of it. It could have been far uglier without his presence. Back home, she mourned as she always did. Quiet days in the Hanged Man which quickly transformed into gratuitous, loud evenings slumped outside Rilien's shop. Or in the doorway of their home. She always found herself tangled in her own sheets, even though she swore she hadn't made it that far. Time was a burden of memories, composed of all the what-if's she'd walked away from. Even then, turning her back had seemed the proper thing to do. The right thing.
What right did she have to return? Sparrow would not leave Kirkwall. And she did not expect her mother to return with her. What would Beragail have done? Leaving the clan to its own devices was out of the question, especially after all she'd seen, after everything they had managed to build throughout the years. Had she been younger and still lost, she might have considered joining them. Certainly not the case with how she was now. She'd grown into another person entirely. Papyrus still dwelt beneath the surface of her skin, clammy and uncomfortable, even if she acknowledged that she was not who she had created so long ago. Sparrow had been there to steel her bones, and carry her through her aches, she was the one she wanted to be. She could be whoever she wanted to. There was no place, no room, for her in Beragail's glade, and the knowledge that her daughter was alive and well would do neither of them any good. Let them both thrive, she supposed, as well as they could.
It didn't mean she could fluff it off. Not so easily. Sparrow bore her expectancies clear as day. Pinned to her eyelids, rimming her eyes like gloomy anchors. She did not slip into the same slump she'd suffered during her possession, but she grieved as anyone did when confronting loss, however poorly. Where had the warm embrace gone? Where had the realization that her daughter was standing right in front of her gone? The moment of recognition and heartache and flooding relief. Her expectancies had been robbed from her in only a few seconds, a breath of eye-contact and then nothing. It was strange, surreal. Like entering a stranger's home, expecting a warm return, and only finding someone who was wondering why you were there in the first place. It had hurt, but she'd learnt something in the process. Home was not what ran in the blood, but rather, whoever you chose it to be. Family was not who you were related to, either.
She wandered the streets with her hands linked behind her head, occasionally dropping them to pluck flailing pieces of shredded cloth clinging to some of the wrecked buildings in the area. Her hands were always busy. Always needed to be occupied, lest she wouldn't know what to do with herself. As she tended to do when she walked with no direction, Sparrow found herself in front of Rilien's shop, kicking up rocks and steeling herself beside his door. It was unfair how she treated him in the throes of her tantrums. In times where comfort and friendship would have been appropriate, she disappeared to mourn on her own, and sheltered herself against kind words. These days, she could not guess what he would say. Or what questions he might ask should she show her face, and still, she appeared at random, greedy for the solace she'd previously rejected.
A few moments later and she heard music playing from above. Had the instrument, and its playing, not sounded so familiar, she might have thought she was losing her mind. It sounded sad, at first. Mimicked the ache in her heart, slow and painfulābut then, it quickened, and reminded her of warmer things. Her friends, the Hanged Man, and laughter mostly. She did not need to call out to know that it was him playing. Sparrow found a rougher path up one of the balconies, and relished the climb, pulling herself up brick and iron-cast fencing before reaching the rooftop where Rilien was seated. He faced away from her, looking to the horizon. Almost lost. She brushed her hands on her trousers and approached him, kneeling down behind him and slipping her hands across his eyes. She'd wanted to laugh and shrill guess who?
Instead, she murmured, āWhat do you see?ā
Fortunately, Rilien had no need of his sight to play, and finished the last few notes with her hands over his eyes. Rough, callused handsāhis eyelashes brushed her palms as he blinked. āVery little, at present.ā His answer was, as always, exceptionally literal.
Sparrow remained immobile, hands poised across his eyes, hunkered behind him like a flightless bird. His eyelashes tickled against her palms. Long and feminine as they were, far longer than her own. She often wondered how he had been in his youth, and if he ever took advantage of those eyes of his, as she would have had their lives been reversed. It would've been a waste otherwise. Hers were mucky coloured things, hardly worth diving in. She envied visceral traits like a hungry beast. A soft chuckle hummed in her throat at his response, as literal as ever. Even if he could not see, he could play just as well. Far better than any of her attempts at clumsily plucking the strings with her eyes uncovered. She figured his playing was like a mirror to the self she'd never been acquainted to. A reflection of memories, long lost but still swimming just beneath the surface. Scratch hard enough and there it wasābrass, copper, brilliant and blinding.
Setting his lute down in his lap, Rilien raised both of his hands to her wrists, wrapping his fingers around them and lifting her hands from his eyes. He did not immediately let go of them, however, instead shifting himself and her both so that they were facing one another. Then he blinked again, moving his hands such that his fingertips, just as callused as hers if a bit more fastidiously-maintained, slid from the insides of her wrists along her palms, finally coming to a rest such that they were under the crooks of her own fingers, balancing them there with no coercion.
She paused when he settled the lute in his lap, and froze entirely when his hands closed around her wrists. Her stomach gave an empty lurch, twisting and twisting and twisting. Whatever fickle, feckless nerve she always had around everyone, seemed to crumble apart in the strangest moments, particularly when Rilien was involved. His hands appeared much larger than hers. Had her hands always been smaller? They slowly lifted away from his eyes, and she shifted along with him. Partially because she did not know what else to do. Like a young boy teetering on the cusp of discomfort and boyish clumsiness, Sparrow did not jerk her hands away. The jest she'd been planning during her ascent quivered away like the smile on her lips, and she wondered how he managed this. Hadn't it been for his Tranquillity, she might've blamed magic. A spell, of course. Of course it was.
Rilien had learned, among many other things his Bardmaster had taught him, that of all the visible parts of someoneās body, the hands often indicated the most. Where they were placed, how rough or smooth they were, where the calluses were located, how the fingernails were kept, or not kept, as the case may be. Sparrowās hands, despite being only slightly smaller than his, with somewhat shorter fingers, were entirely different in character. Rilienās roughened spots were evidence of carefully-chosen disciplines; he had ones on his fingers from lute strings, and others from the hilts of weaponry and his crafting tools. Hers were nicked and toughened in a much less-evident kind of way. Rilienās training had been difficult, but Sparrow had had a hard life. This much was clear in their hands in a way that may never show in their demeanors.
Her hands might have been a mess of claws and old distrusts, hardened where the shaft of her mace would have sat and littered with forgotten scars, while his told tales of artistry, of subtle brutality and another man who'd walked a very different pathābut, his were still graceful and gentle, as if he were guiding the hands of a skittish creature. For once in her life, when she may have guided those hands as any narrow-eyed deviant would have, Sparrow felt green and out of her element. He only ever offered her blunt honesty; subtle, soft. It did not lessen her surprise. When he spoke to her, it nearly felt as if the world had narrowed down to her, and her alone. Whether or not this was intentional, Sparrow could not tell. He did not speak in riddles, nor did he speak in metaphors, in words she might have to puzzle out.
āAnd now I see you.ā The delivery was the same as his purposefully-obtuse answer had been before, but the character of it was entirely different.
He saw her.
Her.
Sparrow drew abruptly closer, tilting her head, and stopping short of his face. Inches apart. Eyes flagged at half mast; hungry, selfish, stupid. Had it been anyone else, perhaps in the Blooming Rose, she might have... Her expression crumbled as she tipped back on her haunches, hands still poised in his. āYou see me?ā she quarried between her teeth, though her words softened, āeven when I don't see myself?ā
Rilien knew an invitation when he saw one. This one, like much about Sparrow, could hardly be called subtle. That established, however, he was unsure what to do about it, in a way he was not accustomed to being uncertain. Perhaps it was because other invitations were always accepted or declined with a long view to an end or an aim he wished to achieve. But what was the long view here? He could not be what she needed. Not anymore. His ability to do anything for her, to be adequate to her demands, lasted up until she required something more than his resources, his intellect, or his patient tolerance could give her. He had always known thatānever more keenly than when he had accepted that this state of affairs was necessary to save her.
It was a keen irony, that the version of himself that would serve here was the one heād given up so she could reach the point where it would be wanted. His emotional self, offered and lost so that she could live as a whole person, who might eventually need someone who could feel for her.
āOften, I see nothing else.ā
And it was all he had to give.
Gently dropping one of her hands, Rilien placed his free one on her crown, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her forehead, at the spot between her brows, just above the bridge of her nose. Smooth, unblemished, whole. As it should be. It was not his doing, in the end, but he had been part of it. He accepted this sharp awareness of his own hollowness as part of that, part of the price to be paid. āBut merely seeing is not sufficient.ā
It was unfair. But when had things ever been fair for any of them? In her youth, she'd thought that no one could afford weakness. That staying in one place longer than was comfortable, was simply foolish. Trust and friendship were blades poised at the bottom of your spine, slavering to sever whatever bonds you'd cooked up in your mind. They were vulnerable spaces, small chinks in her armour, that she'd created over the years. Flaws of her own makingāhow strange, now, that all of the things she'd promised she would never fall prey to, she was now doing. She believed. She stayed. She trusted and actually had friends. She feared losing them, and always wanted more than they could give.
Stranger still, how he could say exactly what she wanted to hear. Her mouth pinched and then settled into a frown, shoulders slumping like a dramatic actress. Rilien had never held a blade to her spine. Never made her feel as if she were backed into a corner and needed fleeing to another part of Thedas, nor driven her away whenever she made trouble. Sure as hell, there was no end to that. How he managed to keep it all at bay... in his own words, illogical. It might have been easier not to bother. That he did meant something. The lump in her throat squeezed at the words she did not have the courage to speak.
She did not move when Rillien dropped one of her hands. Frozen in place as he closed the distance between them and planted a kiss above her nose, soft and sweet as a kitten. It was Sparrow who rocked back on her heels and plopped herself back on her arse, shying away from the proximity that hadn't bothered her nearly as much as before. Warmth boiled up in her face, spoiling her demeanour. Smooth, savvy, slick. All gone. She tugged at the bottom of her mangled ear with her free hand. Her frown wavered in a thin, quibbling line, bordering on one of her grins. It sat awkwardly on her face, as she eyed him. āNot nearly,ā she blurted, cotton-mouthed, āyou're unfair, you know that?ā
"Not nearly as unfair as you are.ā Rilien moved back, content to allow her retreat, and placed his hands upon his knees. His head listed slightly to one side, noting the redness to her face with the tiniest flicker of amusement, tempered even so with the weight of that less-desirable knowledge. The person he had been, could have been, would have felt so much more than that bare spark of a thing. Even now, this was all he could muster.
Perhaps it was better, to skirt around the edges of the subject, allow it to be a matter of implications, all plausibly deniable, but Rilien had never been one to do so. At least, not unless it was necessary. "Why are you here, Sparrow?ā
Unfair as you are. Sparrow tilted her head owlishly. She was somewhat surprised by the mild disappointment swelling in her chest when Rilien released her hands. She settled them in her own lap to prevent them from tremblingāand found herself incapable of smothering the jittery energy bleating through her limbs. Though, his response gave her pause. When had she been unfair? She swore she'd always been the tortured one. Poor her, in her selfish pursuits. Unless he meant all the trouble she'd brought down on their heads. Like an endless storm, cold sleet shivering down to their bones. Never dry enough. No. Rilien never spoke in riddles. He always made things clear.
She tousled a hand through her hair and dropped it back down. Good question. It was a habit. Whenever she drowned herself, instead of facing her feelings as she should have, she'd end up here. Not here exactly. She'd usually find him, wherever he was. He put her worries at ease. Smoothed the wrinkles from her nose. Made her feel lighter. She supposed she sought him out to make herself feel better, and perhaps, that was reason enough. āI wanted to,ā her voice squeaked until she cleared her throat and licked her lips, āI wanted you to understand. What I did, I mean. Why I left. I wanted to explain to you. Just you.ā The others might have understood if she explained herself properly. Some of them deserved answers.
āMy family is here. I belong here. This is my home. Without everyone, without... There's no returning now.ā
"Very well.ā Rilien certainly didnāt have a problem with that. She was right, he thought: her home was there no longer. That much was plainly obvious to him, at least. Of course, if she had decided she wished to attempt making a life there, with her parents, he would have arranged everything to best suit that goal, as far as he could, too. Arranging things to suit this decision was admittedly considerably easier, because it involved changing little, if anything, at all. "If that is what you want, if this life is, then you are welcome to it. I suspect no one would disagree.ā
Perhaps some would feel that she should have at least told her mother that she was alive, to bring the woman closure if nothing else. But from the looks of things Beragail was fine, settled and certainly not excessively distraught on a daily basis. How much more distress would it bring, to both of them, to open up wounds already closed with no clear way of healing them again? In all likelihood, both would have expectations that the other was unable to meet. He was no expert in such matters, of course, but it seemed a likely hypothesis, from what he had observed of other people in his life.
"Iā¦ happen to concur.ā The thought was offered softly, though as with everything Rilien said, confidently. He was nothing if not realistic. "You belong here. That is no shortcoming.ā She fit hereāand she fit into his life in this way. To lose that would beā¦ unsettling. Even to him.
Her shoulders sagged. Whatever retribution she believed she would have had to endure seemed entirely fabricated. It might have been a waste of time, trekking so far out into the woods, and turning tail as soon as they found who she was looking forābut she was still relieved that he did not blame her. He understood. All that was left was to somehow apologize to Ithilian for piddling away at his time, and constantly heckling him for information. She was not so sure he would be as understanding but figured that he, too, might agree that she had no place there. A few stern words, at best. Or maybe, he'd surprise her. Stranger things had happened. Even if he did not think so, Sparrow still counted him as one of her friends; and once that was done, there was no escaping her tedious requests to repay her debts.
She wriggled in her spot. When had she been asked to stay in one place? When had she stayed long enough to be asked, more like. Amalia hadn't the chance, and whatever friends she'd made along the way had little more than a glimpse of shaggy hair fading in a crowd. She steepled her hands together, quickly unwound them and settled them down and back up again. His goodness was compelling and stifling and warm as a scarf wrapped around her neck. Did she deserve all he had done for her? No. The answer resounded in her, clear as day. Nothing could be done in return. It was an outstanding debt she would gladly pay with time and friendship. She hoped it would be enough.
The smile twittered back across her lips, still teeming with a gladness she could not wrestle off her face. She scooted beside him and draped her legs over the edge, kicking them back and forth.
āCan you play another song? A slow one.ā