magnus;

[magnus]

He had watched her from afar—watched as she learned the dips and canyons of her new home, watched as she mourned a father who had turned and abandoned her, watched even when she thought she was alone. He had not intruded, although part of him had not wanted to leave her out of is sight, simple because she needed time to heal. She had endured more in her first year than many do their entire life, and while he was always available, he didn’t actively seek to force himself into her life. He was a guardian, but he would not force himself as her surrogate father—not if that wasn’t what she wanted.

So he simply watched from afar.

Still, he sighed internally from relief when she found him, craning his neck to look at the filly curled into his side. She was growing, rapidly, but she was still small enough to tuck into him and he smiled down at her, reaching over and ruffling her forelock affectionally with the ink of his muzzle. “Atrani,” he greeted warmly, but said nothing else—content to let her sit next to him, to watch her silently by his side.

When she did speak, he frowned, his handsome features folding into thought. “You did nothing wrong,” he assured her, even though his heart broke at the thought of Leliana. She was hollowed out, and he could not stop himself from worrying about her. Worrying when he saw her take to the sky in the middle of the night. Worrying when he saw her down on the coast, standing in the water by herself, silent tears falling.

“You are wise beyond your years, Atrani, but you are still just a child.” His voice was soft, whispered between them. “When you are that young, it is the responsibility of your parent, of the adults in your life, to look out for you—not the other way around.” Anger zipped through his chest at the thought of Dovev, at the way he had looked walking away, but he tucked it away for now, instead just focusing on her.

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll