dee_aisli (dee_aisli) wrote in thedas, @ 2010-01-17 22:06:00 |
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The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. | ||
It was always difficult to come back here. The infirmary was a rectangular construct situated at the easternmost side of the complex, adjacent to the main thoroughfares of Denerim's Chantry, its two, flanking bell towers rising upwards. They were the tallest structures this side of Ferelden's capitol, their shadows stretching over the city's Market District -- relatively new in comparison with the rest of the building, their stone foundations were added on and repaired from the sack of the Darkspawn horde that attacked during the Fifth Blight. They loomed over her form as she crossed the threshold, and proceeded to go upstairs. She had been here so many times in the last few years that she could navigate the corridors blindfolded. One of the healers overseeing the floor paused, catching sight of her as she emerged from the steps. "Sister Deidre," she greeted, her brows lifting upwards. "I wasn't expecting to see you here today." "A brief respite from my travels," Deidre confirmed with a smile. "Is he...?" "I'm not certain," the healer replied with a small and thoughtful frown. "But when I saw to him a few hours ago, he was remarkably lucid. I'm sure, however, that he'd love to see you. He's been asking for you in particular these last few days." Remarkably lucid. A dull ache throbbed somewhere within her at hearing it, though she had managed to keep any reaction off her face at it. "I know, he wrote to me on the road. I returned as soon as I could. I'll see him now, however, see if I can't give him any lip for being such a lazy bastard in his retirement." She grinned, despite not sincerely feeling the urge to do so. "Thank you, Marissa." Her arm adjusted the circular flower vase she carried as she moved down the hall, the fragile, crystalline thing set with an arrangement of blue irises and tiny white star lilies. It was an odd thought, in retrospect, to think that a man would actually like receiving flowers and especially those of his favorite colors. Ever since she learned this about Ser Andreus Vance, she brought him these tokens whenever she could. It had been twelve years since he rescued her from the horde's attack and despite the passage of time, her girlish adoration for him hadn't waned or diminished in the slightest. She hesitated when she reached his door, her hand resting on the bronze knob and pausing there. His admittance to this wing of the Chantry, in particular, was especially difficult and Time only made his addled state all the worse. He drifted in and out of lyrium dreams that were so vivid that the last time she saw him, he scarcely recognized her -- the encounter upset her so grievously she spent the rest of the day in her room, bathing her pillow in tears and refusing to see anyone. While there were a few things in this world that frightened her, somehow, opening this one door remained a daunting task that never failed to freeze her limbs whenever she drew near it. The young initiate took a deep breath, and depressed the latch. The wooden appendage swung inward. She moved to the interior of the room, planting a broad smile on her face. "Surprise! It's your favorite-- " The words died in her mouth. The room was empty. Odd... Marissa said he was here a few hours ago. Had he gone out for a walk? Confusion assailed her as her hazel eyes swept over the small, spartan space. The bed was made, there was no indication that someone had been sitting or laying on it earlier. The books he always kept with him, including a copy of the Chant, remained on the small shelf by his bedside table. The drapes were pushed back from the window, letting the deep gold rays of the afternoon's dying sun filter in and chase the shadows back, glittering specks of dust swirling at the wake of every movement and captured by the light. She moved towards the bedside table, situating the vase she carried there and furrowing her brows. Where did he go? It was the scarlet-red of a wax seal that caught her attention -- the bed linens were a pristine ivory and the color stood out from the square piece of parchment resting on his pillow. Unrepentant in her curiosity as always, Deidre reached out, taking the letter from the bed and turned it over in her palms to look at the name scrawled carefully on the other side of it. Her blood turned to ice in her veins, the correspondence remaining unopened in her hand. The sudden realization drained the breath from her body. The gold and brown robes swirled and snapped around her ankles as she twisted about, hurling herself out of the templar's room in her haste to leave it. She nearly bowled over a pair of sisters moving down the hall when she unceremoniously invaded it, their cries of dismay and surprise bouncing off stone. Deidre reached out to grab one of the flailing limbs, and despite her stationary state at present, her eyes flicked back and forth around the infirmary frantically. "Ser Andreus!" she demanded, desperately trying to quell the rising tide of panic brewing in her stomach. "Have you seen him?!" "N...no! I haven't!" the other woman cried. "Have you gone mad?!" Deidre was already running the moment the first, negative response left the acolyte's lips. Her boots slid over polished rock, nearly tumbling down the stairs the moment she reached it. Her mind rapidly pulled through her mental catalogue, rifling deep in her memories to determine where he could have gone. He had several favorite places in the city, however most were in the Chantry itself and hopefully, he wouldn't be hard to find. Any foolhardy guesswork would render her efforts to reach him moot -- she had to be careful, and make a few locations her first priority. She sprinted down the hall, her heart hammering wildly in her chest and threatening to implode within her ribcage. Andy....Andy....oh, Maker. Don't do anything stupid! The Chapel was empty, and while there were a few personnel loitering around the courtyard and the gardens, none of them were the person she was looking for. With the sands of her mental hourglass dwindling, panic only grew at each frenetic movement to seek him out. Stumbling towards the vegetable-and-herb garden at the back of the property, she rested her hands on her knees, beads of sweat trickling down the side of her face as she panted to regain the oxygen she lost. Telltale pinpricks of heat stung at the back of her eyelids, and while she knew there was no time for that, and there hardly ever was in her profession, she kept moving, shoving herself off her position to keep searching every inch. She tilted her head upward, her knuckles moving to wipe away accumulated moisture on her forehead. Something moved in one of the bell towers. Relief and horror crashed over her, the overwhelming tides threatening to drown her where she stood. The archaeologist sprinted, cutting across grass and earth before throwing herself into the well-kept arches that welcomed visitors into its looming architecture. She took two or three steps at the time, somehow defying physics and gravity both while she moved as if there was no voluminous length of fabric to hinder her. She continued to scramble up the winding path, her hand grasping the banister and jerking herself across the landing. It felt like eternity when she reached the narrow passage that led to the door, open air beckoning her from without as well as the sight of the dome that held one of the Chantry's large bronze bells. A head of pale hair and a set of broad shoulders waited for her at the very end. The wind whipped at her skirts from the heights while she closed the door behind her. The tower's landing wasn't substantial in size by any means, it merely stretched a few feet across in all directions -- today, somehow, it felt as if the masonry underneath her feet continued on endlessly than what human hands had actually built. Sunset gleamed off of the shiny, metal surface of his trademarked templar's armor, a glint of it flickering from the tip of the emblem of Andraste's flaming sword emblazoned on the chestplate. He couldn't wear all of it as one of the hefty shoulder-guards was missing and so was a set of gauntlets... the man's arm had been shattered a few years back from a surprise ambush by a Darkspawn war band during a Maleficar hunt, and both his legs were never the same from the encounter. It was amazing enough in itself that Andreus was able to put most of it on and without help, a testament to the discipline, dedication, and practice of caring for the same set and donning it with pride for many years. Her heart dropped to her stomach at seeing him so close to the edge. Her throat felt as if it was stuffed full of cotton, her lips working around the words that stubbornly refused to leave her mouth. "Andy," she forced out, taking a step forward but not daring to go further. The fact that her voice sounded level and calm while the inner parts of her were screaming was nothing short of amazing. "What are you doing?" Andreus sighed and despite the softness of the gesture, he still managed to sound exasperated. "I wanted to see where I was headed," he replied after a pause, turning sideways so he could look at her. "Your timing is as poor as always." Regardless of the chastising words spoken, a small and melancholy smile lifted the edges of his lips -- well into his mid-fifties, he was still as handsome as she remembered. Her insides twisted painfully at the expression in his ice-blue eyes. "I want to go home, Deidre." Over the years, he never failed to call her by her full name. Deidre, always Deidre. Do you even know what it means? Why I prefer to be called something else...? She swallowed at that, taking another few, hesitant steps forward. "I'm...I'm sorry I couldn't get here faster. I know you wanted to see me so..." Her fists balled at her sides, wrinkling the sealed piece of parchment clutched between her fingers. "Why don't we do that now? Go downstairs, have some tea. We could...we could have Justine join us, the way we used to." He chuckled at her response, shifting so his eyes took in the expanse of deepening blue and vibrant indigo surrounding the both of them. His expression was calm, as affectionate as templars could allow themselves to be. It was the peaceful serenity that sheathed over the lines of his face that tore at whatever hope she was capable of holding. "Nice try, kiddo," he groused, his silvery brows perking upwards at that. "Don't forget I've known you almost all your life. Your tricks don't work on me." This was the part that normally earned him a quip, something to alleviate the mood further whenever she visited him, but there was none of that today. "Andy, come on," Deidre stated, attempting to stem the pleading tone of her words and finding herself failing utterly despite all her best efforts to do so. "You said you wanted to talk to me. We can talk inside. I came all this way...I was at the Free Marches and everything, it takes days just to get back." The rest earned her a flat look from the aging templar. "I was Chantry-raised myself, you know," he reminded. "I'm well-versed with the guilt." "Damn it, I'm being serious!" The statement tore out of her throat, vehemence and fright evident as it filled the space between them. It earned a long silence from the armored man, and for the moment there was nothing but the small, howling whistles from the omnipresent summer winds. She turned her gaze away from him, chewing at the lining of her cheeks and feeling her teeth draw blood. The look on Andreus's face softened. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I haven't seen you in... and I did want to talk. I didn't mean to upset you, even though I was well on my way there. I wanted..." He paused. "I didn't want to you be too angry with me, when I left. I wanted to explain where I was coming from, even though it may be a little hard for you to accept. You're so young, you're at the age where you're running around believing that the entire world is your oyster. And whenever I think of you out there and doing what you love, I..." Deidre blinked rapidly, feeling dew cling onto her lashes as she returned her attention to him. "I knew...it was getting more difficult," she said, pushing the words from around the hard knot that seemed to wedge a permanent place in the back of her throat. "No one knows that more than I. I didn't think it was so bad that you...that you'd want to leave." It was the only other word for it that she could stomach saying, when the bald and honest truth of it was so unforgiving to the heart and conscience. "I just... you could still get better. Don't..." Don't leave me. The words were there, but she had no right to say them. "I wanted to go when I was lucid," the templar replied after another lengthy pause. "I knew coming in that this would happen to me eventually, but a templar never really knows until he's there. My days have been the same, one day I'll be fine, but within hours everything doesn't make any sense. I forget things...people. It never gets better, sweetling. Only worse the older you get and the more regrets you accumulate in this life." He looked at her then, before he returned to his survey of his environs, his good hand dropping on the hilt of his sword and his gauntleted fingers twitching faintly at the absence of his shield. "Sometimes I go back in time and see parts of my life replay before my eyes with such clarity that on occasion, it becomes too much to bear." His grip on his sword-hilt tightened, before relaxing again. "Too much," he muttered to himself, as if she wasn't there all of a sudden. "For all I know, this is a dream, too." Moisture trickled down Deidre's right cheek as she caught the stray traces of his condition. "It's not." "I'm never certain anymore." "Andy..." He looked down at his gnarled and ruined arm, showing it to the space on the other side of her, his eyes wandering away and to a fixed point past where she stood. "I couldn't even end my life with a purpose, the way I would've preferred it if I were whole. You're not a warrior...I don't know if you could ever understand even though you're very smart and I know for love of me, you'll try to. But if you ever find yourself in a place where both your mind and body are broken, your purpose spent... it's easy, to come to a decision like this. To decide to look as best as the circumstances could allow and end everything in your own terms. My...degree of deterioration will not allow me that on its own." The young woman's glance took in the way he held his arm to him, how his stance listed to the right and how strained he looked at just adjusting his position a few steps. The weight of the pieces of armor he managed to put on probably didn't help -- but his pride wouldn't have it otherwise, and now that she was introduced to a glimpse of himself through his own eyes, that blunted, deep-seated throb only increased. She didn't know how she managed to keep herself from sobbing outright, to throw her arms around him and impart on him her fondest farewells. But she had always been stubborn; perhaps he was right in the thought that she might not be able to understand despite her intelligence. "I..." she began, hearing how weak and pitiful her voice was -- so damned childish at twenty-two and loathing herself for it. "I don't know if I could..." "You can," Andreus replied, another slight smile revealed to pair with the suspicious sheen brightening the blues of his irises. "I know you. There's nothing in this world you can't do once you put on that stubborn face." The upwards curve of his mouth was brief, though it was enough to show her a piece of him that survived before the punishments of his sworn duty ravaged him. His following words were uttered softly, so quietly it was a miracle she even heard them. "Let me go, Deidre." The muscles on her face contracted, scrunching up as what was spoken drove into her, wringing out all the breath she had managed to regain only to lose it again within moments. Her eyes burned with more unshed tears, so much so that she couldn't see him clearly past the blurriness. The urge to shake her head, stomp her foot down and tell him no at the top of her lungs was overwhelming, and so was her first instinct to grab him around one of his weakened legs and drag him back down the stairs. But if you ever find yourself in a place where both your mind and body are broken, your purpose spent... The archaeologist pressed her lips together, her heavy lashes falling over her eyes. It felt as if she were standing outside of herself, her detached and heartbroken spirit watching her head nod woodenly in a jerky fashion. "Go home, Andy," she whispered quietly. She opened her eyes at the clanking of disturbed metal. For the briefest of instances, it looked as if he were about to approach her, his visage betraying his relief and sorrow. However, he held his place -- in many ways, for many reasons, she could surmise why. Decisions were easy to make when the end was inevitable, but oftentimes they were difficult to act on the further one moved away from it. Deidre felt her chest constrict, watching him rest a foot on the edge of the tower and lean forward to look at the world beyond and down below. He hesitated, and turned to look at her again. "I'm glad that you came to see me off." She flashed him a watery smile. "So am I." He returned it, and turned away from her to balance his weight carefully on stone. As she watched him, it was almost too much to take. Even in this, he took the time to make sure he would do it right, and the thought of it was enough to break the dam. Hot rivulets ran down her lids, sliding down the delicate curve of her jaw and pooling at the hinge where it met the side of her neck. "Don't ever let anyone see you cry, Deidre." His tone was as gentle as always, quiet in the times when he felt the desire to be fatherly. He must have known, for he kept his back to her while he said it. "Don't give anyone the satisfaction." She nodded, even though he couldn't see it. "I won't," she choked. "I love you." Andreus tilted a small smile over his shoulder at her. He inhaled deeply, stretched out his arms, and flew. He disappeared into the ether quickly, and in the seconds that followed afterwards, the silence was deafening. She didn't hear the occasional whistles the wind made on the precipice, and neither did she hear the birds despite it being the early days of summer when they should be returning from warmer climes. Her knees felt like water and she followed where gravity bid, her robes bunching up as her body hit stone and most of her weight rested at the back of her heels. Her shoulders felt like granite, the image of the templar leaping off the edge seared into the back of her eyeballs. She tilted further back until she felt the cold wall behind her, staring up as twilight descended further over the city's skyline. She knew the shrieking would come eventually, the alarms, the call forwarded to his brothers to see to what happened. She should get on her feet, trudge down the ceaselessly spiraling steps and explain. But everything on her person felt leaden. She couldn't move and she could scarcely breathe. She wasn't aware of the others' presence until a pair of hands reached for her, shaking her by the shoulders. Sister Justine's face loomed over hers, panic, worry, and horror writ plainly on her visage while the other priests and the two templars with them moved towards the edge to look for evidence of foul play or otherwise. While the words spoken to her were garbled in her shocked and unglued mind, she could make a good guess as to what they were. Inquiries, questions...was she alright? What happened? "Deidre." A gentle hand cupped her face, forcing her to look at her worried benefactress. "Please." Seeing her reminded her of the object clutched in her hand. The young woman wordlessly handed the wrinkled and sealed parchment to Justine, who took it and stared down at the abused envelope. It was easy to assume that the letter was meant for her. Deidre couldn't fault anyone for it. After all, Marissa had told her that Andreus had been asking for her. However, the name of the addressee, written by a gentle and loving hand, had been someone else's entirely. The moment she had seen Justine's name on the sheet, and how it was scrawled in a manner different from Andreus's usual handwriting, she knew. If her heart wasn't already battered from the things that had transpired a few moments ago, it was all the more so now, watching the cleric. Her features fell, the lines upon them so pain-stricken that the young academic couldn't look upon them and not feel the palpable grief tear gaping holes within her. It was the face of a woman who never knew, but felt the same. Her arms wound around the older priest as she crumpled by her, feeling her tears soak through her robes. It was the only movement she had made in the last half-hour, her limbs were stiff but she couldn't deny Justine the comfort she was due. Her fingers threaded through the braided coils that kept her hair in place, gathering her as much as she could and holding her as best she could. One of the other sisters turned to the two of them, moving away from the small collective gathered at the end of the ledge. "Sister Justine, I don't think-- " Deidre lifted her head, locking gazes with the unwanted intruder and burning holes through her cranium at the blazing heat of her stare. The emerald flecks sharding her irises glinted ferally at the sudden flash of anger. Shock and her own desire to do nothing but mourn her loss found themselves quickly and temporarily shelved as the unwary deigned to tread upon one of the few things that unleashed the beast of her protective instincts. "Leave her alone." It was no request, the hint of something dangerous simmering in the undercurrents of those three simple words. The priest took a step back, but said nothing else. She turned to rejoin the others and whenever they left at the lack of anything suspicious to be found, the two of them remained. Twilight gave way to the early evening, and while always the first to comment as to how beautiful everything was under the natural, cold light of the night's celestial bodies, there was nothing of the kind forthcoming. All she heard were quiet sobs, and as they continued to dampen her shoulder, she kept her limbs locked around the closest thing she ever had to a mother as she wept. Her own tears have dried up, and have been for gone a while. They vanished before the rest even came across her stunned and unmoving self at the top of the bell tower, effectively keeping her promise to a dead man without even meaning to. |
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