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Tweak says, "SUNSHINE!!!!!!!!!!"

d_gallagher (d_gallagher) wrote in thebattleage,
@ 2011-05-15 02:00:00

Entry tags:

! complete, (thread), declan gallagher, emil asmundr

Thread: Guarding Silence
Who: Declan Gallagher, Emil Asmundr
Where: Vigil's Keep
When: 1 Solis
Summary: Dec is keeping watch in a quiet, uneventful corner of the Keep when one of the new Warden transfers stumbles upon him.
Rating: PG

Declan enjoyed being a guard at Vigil's Keep. He'd been honored to spend the last five years in the service of the Warden Commander, protecting those who lived and worked within the Keep while still granting aid to the nearby city of Amaranthine. After all, that was still his home. He enjoyed the quiet patrols at night, the training sessions during the day with the other guards. Sometimes the Warden Commander or one of the other Wardens would be present. Sometimes he would get to test his mettle against those who were warriors of legend. He felt honored for the mere chance to serve. He often wondered what it would be like to be a member of the Order, to be enfolded within an privileged brotherhood of fighters.

Today he was assigned to the battlements for his first watch, or more particularly a tower near the southeast wall. A boring job it could be, since this particular tower overlooked the cliffs below, that no fool would dare to scale in an assault. Still, it was important that it be patrolled the same as any other part of the Keep. And so Declan would spent a good amount of time pacing the top of the tower, scanning from the high windows and to the Keep down below. In the distance the tournament was going on, but he couldn't see any of the action from here. He heard the occasional cheer, the faint sound of metal ringing as sword struck.

After pacing the large room at the top he'd take the winding staircase down, patrol the outer perimeter of the tower and then go back up the steps to begin again. It was a boring and repetitive job, and Dec much preferred the days when he walked the battlements near the front gate or patrolled the grounds to mingle with the workers and visitors. He almost, almost preferred the days he was stuck in the Keep's throne room, the place where the Seneschal and the Warden Commander would hear complaints from all the nobles who paid tribute to Amaranthine. He had a hard time not rolling his eyes every time one of those stuffed shirts whined about where their money was being spent, or demanded something from the Warden Commander. As if he did not have enough to contend with. That was insufferable, but at least it wasn't boring.

When Dec alighted the last step to the top once more he sighed and leaned his forearms against the edge of one of the open windows, staring out at the city beyond the Keep's walls.

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asmundr
2011-05-18 03:31 pm UTC (link)

"Were they not suitable, they would die," he replied flatly, voice empty of anything but conviction. His sister had died in this manner, and while he missed her every day, every moment still, he had accepted that it was not her fate and that she was with the Maker now. To him, the choosing occurred in the Joining, not in the moment when the Commander decided.

And then...how to answer this...Emil seldom felt like an anomaly, he knew his place in the Order, he was one Warden among many. But he realised now for the first time, that to others his situation must be very unusual, almost freakish.

He was a Grey Warden, not by choice, but by long family tradition. He still had his last name, and a family that bore it as well. In Hossberg, and indeed Weisshaupt too, there were others like him, men and women from families with a tradition of sending their young ones to the Order. While taking up the sigil of the Grey Wardens was surely an honour, they were a military order like any other. And every military order needed soldiers. The thought did not make him bitter, he was a pragmatic man.

"I am perhaps not the best representative of the Wardens of the Anderfels," he admitted. "My family has a long-running agreement with the Order. I have a family, against the oath that my sons will join when their day has come. I am seldom with them, all in all my life is not so different from my brothers and sisters in the Order. The Asmundrs have merely...turned a practical arrangement into an honour."

His voice was heavy with conviction; pride and sorrow and acceptance all mixed into one. At times he very briefly wondered if the sacrifice was worth it, if the pain it brought to his loved ones was worth having them at all. There was a home and a family, but he saw neither especially often.
But this way of life was the tradition and the honour of his family. They served and were allowed to do so in their own, slightly different way. It was not something he questioned.

"I serve, just like my brothers and sisters," he finished, voice strangely soft and low. "My burden is just different from theirs."

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