The dreams in this place were all of blood.
He supposed that was to be expectedāthe noise of the present did tend to drown out the whispers of the past. It had even been difficult to focus in on the right things in the ruin, and heād ensured no one made it up that far, with help from Thalia, of course. It was convenient to have someone around who didnāt mind taking care of the more mundane matters, in exchange for as little as heād had to give. But she spent most of her time with the Inquisitionās forces now, which was well enough. He couldnāt say he mindedāwhat he had to offer in glimpses was rarely so interesting to people as what could be more directly and urgently experienced in the present. Not when the present had the potential to take oneās life.
It was part of the reason he found this whole southern war patently ridiculous. It was a petty thing, born of fear and bitterness and the inability to see past oneās own nose, and he had little use for it. The sooner things became peaceful again, the sooner he would return to what really mattered.
Still, he thought, turning the device in his hands over and around between his long fingers, there were benefits to this as well. It had been too long since heād seen herāEstella. He was thinking now with a clarity that had left him in her absence, the kind of clarity only she had ever really afforded him. He doubted it was a phenomenon unique to him, though he suspected she didnāt know about the effect she could, with time and care, have on people. He wasnāt inclined to tell her, lest she waste more of it on people who were not him. A selfish thought, oh, the very paradigm of selfishness, but unlike most people, heād never claimed to be otherwise. Not in the slightest. He didnāt see the use in it, either, for that matter.
The pads of his fingers brushed over the smooth metal surface of the sphere, finding the divots of the runes carved into its surface. Elvish, of course; heād assembled a lexicon a number of years ago, and been adding to it since; most of these, he had seen already, but a few had slightly different forms. Perhaps older? Or more recent?
He set the sphere in his lap, safely held by his crossed legs, and reached to the side for his notebook, where he began meticulously sketching out the shapes of the runes, and their relative positioning to one another. He sat in front of his tent, a luxury that had not been granted him, but one heād thankfully already had. It kept the damnable insects at bay, anyway. Heād been unmoving for most of the morning, though heād risen with the sun and taken a walk before doing anything else. He liked to always have his bearings, a practical necessity since he could often lose them by an act so simple as taking a nap.
He thought he understood the function of the object, and if so, it was quite the find. It seemed to have a limited range, however, and he surmised that there must be others elsewhere, perhaps even in the Hinterlands themselves. If he could collect them, they might prove quite useful to his researchā¦
It couldnāt have been more than a few minutes later that footsteps approached, as did the smell of food. āI thought I might find you here,ā Estella said, and there was a rustle as she took a seat across from him, setting what seemed to be a slightly-dented tin tray of food down in front of him and balancing another on her opposite hand. It tipped precariously for a moment, and she hastily put it down in her lap before she could lose any of the contents.
āEveryone else is at breakfast. I remember how bad you are at eating when somethingās caught your interest.ā She smiled slightly, something unidentifiable in the expression. Curiously, she looked at the orb in his hands.
Ah, yes, nourishment. He did tend to neglect that. And sleep sometimes, when wakefulness was more useful than dream. It just seemed soā¦ unimportant. But she had successfully reminded him that he needed to eat, and so he passed her the orb almost carelessly, assuming she would handle it with the delicacy it warranted. āItās an elven device.ā He cut into the simple food with precise, studied motions of his hands, rendering it into exact squares before he lifted any of it to his mouth. āDesigned, it seems, to influence the Veil in a given area, to lend it strength.ā
Estella turned it over in her hands, not so unlike the way heād been doing so before. She looked at the runes with clear puzzlement, however, of course being unable to read them. She had always been better with languages than most other things, but it was very rare that anyone had cause to learn any elvishāeven the Dalish had only scattered fragments of it. āReally? Something so small can do all that?ā She seemed a bit skeptical, but laid it carefully down in the grass near him anyway, before turning to her own food.
He smiled at that, mischief entering his expression. āCome now, Stellulam; magic is never to be judged by its appearance aloneāyou know that.ā He watched her motions with a sort of attentiveness usually reserved for his more interesting observations, but then, this was interesting. Six years, it had been, and she had certainly grown up. So had he, of course, but heād been present for that, not confronted with it in the same sudden way he was now. He wondered just how much the years had doneāfor surely, they had done much to him.
Her lips pursed, and she swallowed before she nodded. āYeah, I know.ā For a moment, she glanced down at her bare hand and grimaced. āBetter than ever.ā She paused for a moment, looking like she wanted to say more, but then she fell silent, retreating from whatever ease the conversation had previously had.
That in itself was an interesting development. Once, there had been little, if anything, she would hide from him. That she seemed to be withdrawing now was something he found displeasing, and so he sought to change the subject of the discussion somewhat. āIs that so?ā The question was light, betraying not an iota of his thoughts. āAnd what else has changed, Stellulam? I have heard tales of mercenaries and rends in the Fade, and I must confess myself most curious as to what you have accomplished in this time.ā Frankly, he thought mercenary work was a bitā¦ strange, for Estella, but as the stories went, the particular company to which she belonged was headed up by a Duke, or some such, which was quite the novelty. Heād had little opportunity to keep abreast of political developments in the past couple of years, and had cared little for them to begin with.
Her expression warmed, and her back straightened slightly. āIā¦ yes. I work for the Lions. Well, the full name is the Argent Lions, but most people drop the first part. I found my way to Kirkwall first, and then when the Commander moved back to Orlais, my friends and I went with him, so Iāve been there for a while now. Itās beenā¦ really nice, actually. I made lieutenant recently.ā She looked at him, her expression caught somewhere between hopefulness and something guarded.
He suspectedāthough he could not be sure, and that unsettled himāthat she was seeking his approval, or at least his congratulations. His brows furrowed for a moment, and he wondered why that might be. Obviously, if his sister wanted to be a mercenary, she would be an excellent one; it was hardly a surprise. But, if that was what she wanted, it wasnāt like he minded.
He reached across the short gap between them and ruffled her hair. āBut of course you did. Iād expect nothing less.ā
She smiled, but something about it was slightly strained, and it didnāt reach all the way to her eyes. āWhat about you, Cy? I know you left Tevinter, but you never said whyā¦ or much about what youāve been doing since then.ā
He resisted the urge to sigh. Clearly, heād lost the sense heād had of her feelings over the intervening years. Then again, she was conversely less shy and yet somehow more reticent than she had once been. He wondered if that was the product of her leaving, or what had happened to her afterwards. His hand clenched on his fork, but he eased it immediately. She was asking about what heād been doing, and that was a topic on which he could muster a great deal of enthusiasm. Indeed, he soon felt it coming on, and immediately, his mind was away on a tangent, one that he relayed to her as well as he could with the vagaries of mundane language.
āI left because there wasnāt anything to be gained from staying. I learned much there, but what I wish to learn now is something no Magister can teach me.ā There was a delicate emphasis on the word āMagister,ā one that carried the faintest hint of disdain. āAnd so I have elected to learn what I can from sources older and more venerated than they. On a day to day basis, this consists in traveling to various locations known to contain ruins from various stages of civilization, and accessing the Fade there.ā
He set aside his plate, no longer even slightly interested in eating, and instead pulled his notebook into his lap. The cover was made of leather, waterproofed but surprisingly simple for someone so used to the ornate and even overwrought, and the spine contained a strip of silverite, for reinforcement purposes. He opened it to a random page, this one covered with what looked to be an architectural rendition of a very old castle, large banners of no recognizable nation hanging from its walls. Figures dotted the walls, dressed in a way that somewhat resembled the modern Avvar. They were no such thing, of course, being much older than that, but the cultural heritage was clear, anyway.
āI see it, and then I transcribe it here. And there is so much to see, Stellulam.ā He scowled. āWhen it can be seen, over all this nonsense.ā He gestured vaguely, but it wasnāt hard to guess what he meant by that.
She bent over slightly, her own breakfast temporarily forgotten, tracing one side of the castleās wall with a finger. āYou go to ruins and see this?ā There was a trace of wonder in her tone, but then she shook her head and straightened, smiling wryly. āSomehow, it doesnāt really surprise me that you do.ā
Ah. He recognized this. He should use humor here. āIt shouldnāt.ā He was flippant about it, and smiled slyly. āI am a genius, after all. Everyone says so.ā Lots of people actually had said so, but it seemed silly to him. Cyrus knew he was gifted, and he didnāt apologize for it, but it was just a fact. Some people were very tall. It was the same kind of thingāgenius wasnāt a skill heād cultivated, like some of the other things he could do. It was merely a brute fact about his makeup.
Why anyone thought that was praiseworthy any more than being tall was, heād never bothered to parse.
It was a familiar jest, and the wryness went away, replaced by a genuine little smile. āA āgeniusā that manages to forget he needs to eat.ā She rolled her eyes at him, but then stood and dusted herself off. āWell, if you ever decide to join the rest of us little people, weāve got work to do here in the boring physical world, and we could use your help, you know.ā She held her hand out to take his plate, too, inviting him to hand it up to her.
He curled his lip in mock disgust. Well, mostly mock, anyway. āI suppose. But only since youāre the one asking.ā Instead of handing her his plate, he picked up his own and grasped her hand with his, pulling himself up. āWhere are the big, bad templars, then? I think itās time they met a mage who hasnāt been stuck in a Circle too long to learn anything useful.ā
āYouāre terrible.ā Though her tone was flat, she clearly didnāt mean it.
Cyrus only smiled.
He supposed that was to be expectedāthe noise of the present did tend to drown out the whispers of the past. It had even been difficult to focus in on the right things in the ruin, and heād ensured no one made it up that far, with help from Thalia, of course. It was convenient to have someone around who didnāt mind taking care of the more mundane matters, in exchange for as little as heād had to give. But she spent most of her time with the Inquisitionās forces now, which was well enough. He couldnāt say he mindedāwhat he had to offer in glimpses was rarely so interesting to people as what could be more directly and urgently experienced in the present. Not when the present had the potential to take oneās life.
It was part of the reason he found this whole southern war patently ridiculous. It was a petty thing, born of fear and bitterness and the inability to see past oneās own nose, and he had little use for it. The sooner things became peaceful again, the sooner he would return to what really mattered.
Still, he thought, turning the device in his hands over and around between his long fingers, there were benefits to this as well. It had been too long since heād seen herāEstella. He was thinking now with a clarity that had left him in her absence, the kind of clarity only she had ever really afforded him. He doubted it was a phenomenon unique to him, though he suspected she didnāt know about the effect she could, with time and care, have on people. He wasnāt inclined to tell her, lest she waste more of it on people who were not him. A selfish thought, oh, the very paradigm of selfishness, but unlike most people, heād never claimed to be otherwise. Not in the slightest. He didnāt see the use in it, either, for that matter.
The pads of his fingers brushed over the smooth metal surface of the sphere, finding the divots of the runes carved into its surface. Elvish, of course; heād assembled a lexicon a number of years ago, and been adding to it since; most of these, he had seen already, but a few had slightly different forms. Perhaps older? Or more recent?
He set the sphere in his lap, safely held by his crossed legs, and reached to the side for his notebook, where he began meticulously sketching out the shapes of the runes, and their relative positioning to one another. He sat in front of his tent, a luxury that had not been granted him, but one heād thankfully already had. It kept the damnable insects at bay, anyway. Heād been unmoving for most of the morning, though heād risen with the sun and taken a walk before doing anything else. He liked to always have his bearings, a practical necessity since he could often lose them by an act so simple as taking a nap.
He thought he understood the function of the object, and if so, it was quite the find. It seemed to have a limited range, however, and he surmised that there must be others elsewhere, perhaps even in the Hinterlands themselves. If he could collect them, they might prove quite useful to his researchā¦
It couldnāt have been more than a few minutes later that footsteps approached, as did the smell of food. āI thought I might find you here,ā Estella said, and there was a rustle as she took a seat across from him, setting what seemed to be a slightly-dented tin tray of food down in front of him and balancing another on her opposite hand. It tipped precariously for a moment, and she hastily put it down in her lap before she could lose any of the contents.
āEveryone else is at breakfast. I remember how bad you are at eating when somethingās caught your interest.ā She smiled slightly, something unidentifiable in the expression. Curiously, she looked at the orb in his hands.
Ah, yes, nourishment. He did tend to neglect that. And sleep sometimes, when wakefulness was more useful than dream. It just seemed soā¦ unimportant. But she had successfully reminded him that he needed to eat, and so he passed her the orb almost carelessly, assuming she would handle it with the delicacy it warranted. āItās an elven device.ā He cut into the simple food with precise, studied motions of his hands, rendering it into exact squares before he lifted any of it to his mouth. āDesigned, it seems, to influence the Veil in a given area, to lend it strength.ā
Estella turned it over in her hands, not so unlike the way heād been doing so before. She looked at the runes with clear puzzlement, however, of course being unable to read them. She had always been better with languages than most other things, but it was very rare that anyone had cause to learn any elvishāeven the Dalish had only scattered fragments of it. āReally? Something so small can do all that?ā She seemed a bit skeptical, but laid it carefully down in the grass near him anyway, before turning to her own food.
He smiled at that, mischief entering his expression. āCome now, Stellulam; magic is never to be judged by its appearance aloneāyou know that.ā He watched her motions with a sort of attentiveness usually reserved for his more interesting observations, but then, this was interesting. Six years, it had been, and she had certainly grown up. So had he, of course, but heād been present for that, not confronted with it in the same sudden way he was now. He wondered just how much the years had doneāfor surely, they had done much to him.
Her lips pursed, and she swallowed before she nodded. āYeah, I know.ā For a moment, she glanced down at her bare hand and grimaced. āBetter than ever.ā She paused for a moment, looking like she wanted to say more, but then she fell silent, retreating from whatever ease the conversation had previously had.
That in itself was an interesting development. Once, there had been little, if anything, she would hide from him. That she seemed to be withdrawing now was something he found displeasing, and so he sought to change the subject of the discussion somewhat. āIs that so?ā The question was light, betraying not an iota of his thoughts. āAnd what else has changed, Stellulam? I have heard tales of mercenaries and rends in the Fade, and I must confess myself most curious as to what you have accomplished in this time.ā Frankly, he thought mercenary work was a bitā¦ strange, for Estella, but as the stories went, the particular company to which she belonged was headed up by a Duke, or some such, which was quite the novelty. Heād had little opportunity to keep abreast of political developments in the past couple of years, and had cared little for them to begin with.
Her expression warmed, and her back straightened slightly. āIā¦ yes. I work for the Lions. Well, the full name is the Argent Lions, but most people drop the first part. I found my way to Kirkwall first, and then when the Commander moved back to Orlais, my friends and I went with him, so Iāve been there for a while now. Itās beenā¦ really nice, actually. I made lieutenant recently.ā She looked at him, her expression caught somewhere between hopefulness and something guarded.
He suspectedāthough he could not be sure, and that unsettled himāthat she was seeking his approval, or at least his congratulations. His brows furrowed for a moment, and he wondered why that might be. Obviously, if his sister wanted to be a mercenary, she would be an excellent one; it was hardly a surprise. But, if that was what she wanted, it wasnāt like he minded.
He reached across the short gap between them and ruffled her hair. āBut of course you did. Iād expect nothing less.ā
She smiled, but something about it was slightly strained, and it didnāt reach all the way to her eyes. āWhat about you, Cy? I know you left Tevinter, but you never said whyā¦ or much about what youāve been doing since then.ā
He resisted the urge to sigh. Clearly, heād lost the sense heād had of her feelings over the intervening years. Then again, she was conversely less shy and yet somehow more reticent than she had once been. He wondered if that was the product of her leaving, or what had happened to her afterwards. His hand clenched on his fork, but he eased it immediately. She was asking about what heād been doing, and that was a topic on which he could muster a great deal of enthusiasm. Indeed, he soon felt it coming on, and immediately, his mind was away on a tangent, one that he relayed to her as well as he could with the vagaries of mundane language.
āI left because there wasnāt anything to be gained from staying. I learned much there, but what I wish to learn now is something no Magister can teach me.ā There was a delicate emphasis on the word āMagister,ā one that carried the faintest hint of disdain. āAnd so I have elected to learn what I can from sources older and more venerated than they. On a day to day basis, this consists in traveling to various locations known to contain ruins from various stages of civilization, and accessing the Fade there.ā
He set aside his plate, no longer even slightly interested in eating, and instead pulled his notebook into his lap. The cover was made of leather, waterproofed but surprisingly simple for someone so used to the ornate and even overwrought, and the spine contained a strip of silverite, for reinforcement purposes. He opened it to a random page, this one covered with what looked to be an architectural rendition of a very old castle, large banners of no recognizable nation hanging from its walls. Figures dotted the walls, dressed in a way that somewhat resembled the modern Avvar. They were no such thing, of course, being much older than that, but the cultural heritage was clear, anyway.
āI see it, and then I transcribe it here. And there is so much to see, Stellulam.ā He scowled. āWhen it can be seen, over all this nonsense.ā He gestured vaguely, but it wasnāt hard to guess what he meant by that.
She bent over slightly, her own breakfast temporarily forgotten, tracing one side of the castleās wall with a finger. āYou go to ruins and see this?ā There was a trace of wonder in her tone, but then she shook her head and straightened, smiling wryly. āSomehow, it doesnāt really surprise me that you do.ā
Ah. He recognized this. He should use humor here. āIt shouldnāt.ā He was flippant about it, and smiled slyly. āI am a genius, after all. Everyone says so.ā Lots of people actually had said so, but it seemed silly to him. Cyrus knew he was gifted, and he didnāt apologize for it, but it was just a fact. Some people were very tall. It was the same kind of thingāgenius wasnāt a skill heād cultivated, like some of the other things he could do. It was merely a brute fact about his makeup.
Why anyone thought that was praiseworthy any more than being tall was, heād never bothered to parse.
It was a familiar jest, and the wryness went away, replaced by a genuine little smile. āA āgeniusā that manages to forget he needs to eat.ā She rolled her eyes at him, but then stood and dusted herself off. āWell, if you ever decide to join the rest of us little people, weāve got work to do here in the boring physical world, and we could use your help, you know.ā She held her hand out to take his plate, too, inviting him to hand it up to her.
He curled his lip in mock disgust. Well, mostly mock, anyway. āI suppose. But only since youāre the one asking.ā Instead of handing her his plate, he picked up his own and grasped her hand with his, pulling himself up. āWhere are the big, bad templars, then? I think itās time they met a mage who hasnāt been stuck in a Circle too long to learn anything useful.ā
āYouāre terrible.ā Though her tone was flat, she clearly didnāt mean it.
Cyrus only smiled.