"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
It was moderately difficult to find the meadow. The scents are somewhat familiar, but they’re changing with the seasons and with the endless array of horses. They come and go with the wind, leaving behind hundreds of trails that she has been decidedly sifting through. Her steps are hesitant, meticulous, and her chin lifts in one direction then another in attempt to find him.
He has wandered from one place to another. His scent mingles with a myriad of others and in a multitude of directions. Atrani has spent hours navigating and taking misunderstood turns to finally end up here in the meadow where she suddenly remembers the way the grass sweeps across her legs and how the trees rustle with a gentle breeze. Everything comes back to her in this moment, but not all of it is good.
Of course, she cannot find where she had first felt soil instead of mother’s warmth. That has been months ago (she knows this only by how she has grown and how she has had to alter her position to eat). But there still remains his scent, lingering and latching desperately to her nostrils.
This is wrong, so wrong.
Atrani pauses and blindly looks over her shoulder. Somewhere back there is the safety of Tephra and Magnus, but when she turns her head forward again, she imagines father. Unfortunately, she also imagines the mare. Not allowing it to stop her – not this time – she tries to carefully pick her way across the meadow until his scent is potent and all she can smell. There is movement and she is suddenly reaching forward to feel the familiar bony ridges across him. ”Father,” she murmurs in a hushed tone before taking a slow step back. Although she expected to find him, she didn’t anticipate what she would say or know how she would react.
”You left me so easily,” she pauses as a breath catches in her throat, ”you didn’t even say goodbye.”
dove into her eyes and starved all the fears
picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________
He was keeping him busy, keeping him out of the way. Sending him on a pointless mission for some ironman that probably didn't even exist. No matter where he searched, there was never any sign of him. Never even a hint that had ever walked the earth. But Ashley insisted, of course. And Ashley knew all things. And Ashley commanded, so he obeyed. Not easily, never easily. With a bitterness in his heart and a grudging respect for the man who had trained him -who owned him. Despite that everything he trained him for was now lost. Gone.
He'd lost everything.
As if called by his thoughts, as if he just knew she was there, his head turned to land on the very one that possibly had crushed him the most. His heart fractured like shattering ice and he jerked his eyes away. He choked, trembled, forced himself to breathe. His jaw clenched tight, and he tried not to think of how much she'd grown, how incredibly beautiful she was, like her mother. Cerva. That hurt like hell, too. Where Cerva had always been so loving, hungry for his affection as he hungered for hers, Atrani had constantly rejected his touch.
Father, and she was there. And touching him, lining the ridge of bone plate. He swallowed against the painful lump in his throat, keeping his eyes closed as a hot tear slipped down his chiseled cheek. It was so hard to breathe, so sharp were the blades in his lungs. You left me so easily, you didn't even say goodbye.
God but he couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, and he turned his head to reach for her. Tentatively, hesitantly, afraid she would vanish at the slightest touch, afraid she would recoil from him again as she always had. No, he couldn't bear it, couldn't do it, and he stopped before he touched her, breathing in that goddamn bastard's scent. Magnus.
She left him for the enemy. Preferred him to her own father.
Magnus could never love her like he did.
He pushed back the hate, tried to ignore the rage and hurt. The betrayal. She was here, and he'd throw himself into this beautiful fantasy and damn the consequences, as always. Damn the crippling anguish he would feel when she left him again.
I can't survive any more of your rejection, he murmured in pained honesty, his voice strained and mouth hovering so near her beautiful neck. But he wouldn't touch her. He couldn't. When he would grab and take with anyone else, he couldn't bear to feel her shrink away from his touch again. Always pulling away. If I fought for you, I would only die when you left me anyway. And how could he watch over her if he were dead.
I'll take my bow, I won't make a sound I whisper truce as the ashes hit the ground
Hold me, she wants to say, but a lump forms in her throat that prevents the words from being uttered. I want to be loved, she muses, but she has already realized how great of a folly that is. Love? No, it doesn’t exist. If there is anything she has learned at all, it’s that travesty and suffering reigns here. The joy is short-lived, the whispered secrets all lies. Her body bristles when she remembers Leliana and how father stunk of her. The scent still coats Atrani’s memories in disgust and betrayal, black paint destroying what hopes of happiness she may have once had.
They all played a role in destroying her, in abolishing that childish innocence and joy. What should have been a monumental welcome into the world disintegrated into a pile of ash that lathered her tongue and darkened her already-bleak world. There was no smile, no honeyed words, when she gasped for her first breath. Everything in those first few minutes were tainted, bitter, forever ruined.
Her jaw clenches when he speaks, because at first, she only sees him with someone else, a mysterious figure that isn’t Cerva. It angers her and poisons her thoughts initially, but then she composes herself in the most eerie of ways. Her head tilts to one side, then the next, like a rag doll with a broken neck. A slow, raspy breath fills her lungs, and then she is silent, unmoving. She listens to what he says, but also listens to how the wind tousles his mane and how he draws in the scent of her for the first time in months. Atrani lets him; she grants him that bittersweet wish as her mouth wanders back up to a bony plate. ”I only know rejection,” she murmurs icily into the heat of his skin, plumes of steam coiling between them. ”Cerva rejected me – us – just as you rejected Zoryn.” A pause carries the weight of her pain and truth, the uneasiness of it hurting her. ”I’ve only ever known heartbreak,” unseeing eyes peer up at him as a chill claws down her back. She reflects on everything – on father, mother, Magnus, Leliana, Rhonen – and she comes to an easy conclusion that slips past her lips before she can react or even stop it.
”I only know how to ruin lives, like you, daddy.”
dove into her eyes and starved all the fears
picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________
Her mouth lined a plate of his armor as she spoke again. "I only know rejection. Cerva rejected me -us- just as you rejected Zoryn." His jaw clenched, aching from her words as though struck a physical blow.
He didn't like the mention of Zoryn, either. Not him, not Cerva. Cerva had not rejected them she just... She just. No, she would have come home if she could, if something hadn't stopped her. She was dead, she had to be. Nothing else could keep her away, she loved their child. He'd heard it. She'd loved her, even if she couldn't forgive and love him again. She would have still come, she would have still been there for her.
"I've only ever known heartbreak.
I only know how to ruin lives, like you, daddy."
He jerked out of her touch with a sharp hiss as though burned. Always, she aimed straight for his heart. Always. I never rejected you, he said, his voice bitter and cold. He would never earn her love, never know her affection. And it fucking killed him. She was his only child, his child with Cerva. She was so special to him, even as she repeatedly broke him and forced those tears to spill down his face. Consistently shattered his heart, waited for it to almost mend, then did it again.
Why have you come to find me, Atrani. It certainly wasn't to love him, was it. Only beat him while he was down, like the rest of them. He'd given up everything to learn to protect Cerva, and now everything that mattered was gone. He was nothing but a tool now, a weapon for someone else to wield as he saw fit.
He wasn't anything, to anyone.
His love had never been good enough for her. So what then?
I'll take my bow, I won't make a sound I whisper truce as the ashes hit the ground
