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[dissono]

for private scenes and correspondence.
non-urgent crystal messages will be responded to by letter at his earliest convenience.

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[limier]

A flare of — something, some strange energy chattering like spiny ice up her veins —

Because you know who I've killed, Isn't going to help this. Because I lied for you,

He never asked for that. At last:

"He told me that you drowned him." As though it's not insane to add, "That you drowned him, after the knife."

[dissono]

Not only is that insane to add, it's a fairly insane beginning—for the first time since the conversation began he looks back to her, and if there's no bewilderment in the expression itself, perhaps it's conveyed by the fact he looks at all.

A dead man who he did not drown told her literally anything.

“Wren,” he says, and then: “Wh-what?”

[limier]

"The Anderfels," The Circle. The mission she's not discussed, brushed over only with a glaze of sand; the tension of a long journey through angry country. "He spoke to me. Averie. He told me,"

Her hand rises, presses to her temple. Eyes shut.

"It told me. It wore his face, but he'd eyes in his head, Gervais. He never has his bloody eyes."

Jaw works, releases. Don't make a scene. Not above water, not with others about.

[dissono]

A demon told her, Andraste's fire-dried cunt.

No part of him wants to have this conversation. No part of him wants to say what will end it, because he doesn't know if that will be the end of it, but Maker knows it will fester if he doesn't. It has festered in his silence, that much is plain, unknown to him—should he have known? He feels as if he should; cannot be sure if that's truth or overactive sense of responsibility.

He is responsible for those deaths. That he should never have been put in the position of being so—

Yet he was. And he is. He could have fled bloodlessly, the opportunity was there. He chose to ensure he would not be followed.

“Kn-kn-kn-knife. Mine.” Not Werner's, but the blade to which Gwenaëlle carries a twin, hers dropped once in front of Wren from nerveless fingers. He took Werner's, a practical man by nature, but he hadn't wielded it. He imagines, distantly, that that may matter to her. He touches his fingertips to his throat, meeting her gaze. “It—it, it, it was fast. Th-they stood close to-to-t-t-t-to-together.”

An exhale.

“Th-th-their, ah, ah, their b-b-bodies—I, ah. I could not, not tell you. Where the ravine.”

The first few weeks and months blurred, indistinct; what direction he'd been traveling in, what direction he'd traveled from. Those moments run hot with blood are burned into his mind, but the rest...

Gervais couldn't find where he left them if he wanted to. He doesn't.

[limier]

Silence. She watches his throat. Wheels creak, hoove strike; the muffled blur of so much separate conversation filters around and between them. Clanking and rustling and cursing at rocks in the path —

Speak. She ought to speak.

"Your knife." An echo. Perhaps she means thank you, only she doesn’t mean that at all. Thank you is for letters and handshakes and salons. The false bones of courtesy. "Fast."

His knife. Can’t say whether it should be better — any better than Gwenaelle’s own fingers curled about the grip, and doesn't that prove she’s the nerve for it? They’ve both the nerve for it, may they not again need it. Her posture slips in place,

"It called itself Grief." After a fashion. Hardly her first demon; but the first of its kind, "It must be terrible, to meet so often in the Fade."

What are quiet dreams to a mage?

[dissono]

A lot of things are new to him, out of the circles. In the world. Back in the company of other people. Pursuing a relationship that's more than a rushed fumble the Templars were never as blind to as all that. It's within him to give this much, when he can see how needful—

He thinks he might be no more equipped to speak on it further if he were better equipped to speak at all.

Least of all on his dreams.

It's a blindly done thing, how he reaches out abruptly to press her knee with his hand—a warm weight, curving familiar, intended reassurance. Reassurance because the next thing he does when he releases that grip is press his knees, urge his horse forward, riding ahead.

The road is scattered enough with Inquisition agents that he doesn't need to go far to be alone, and still surrounded.

[limier]

A moment's hesitation, the odd stutter of motion that presses her up and ready for pursuit, and —

Right. She settles back in, grinds teeth against lip to ignore the irritated snort of the creature beneath her. Brushes fingers against its shorn mane. The spine of new stubble before hands, heat.

Don't leave, and the space between request and command is the chance to. Leave, but come back.