INQUISITOR EYUAL.
The wind utters a benediction, a howl of sheer gnarled bite and garish intent. It seeps into the bones of the weak, chilling into slumber, and it is a glance that she bares down in winter’s embrace – away from him, for a moment, to cast a loathsome look of judgement of those shivering below. They scramble and huddle, snagging blankets, and calling out orders – templars, warriors she shackled by her own hymn of decree, and perhaps she is cruel to find amusement in their precious fortitude. Her attention draws back to the man who walked the Fade with her, who offered himself up in sacrificial duty.
❝You did not seem the type to let that stop you. How surprisingly intelligent, ❞ it is but a mere coo that stutters past her tiers, arms drawing about a lithe figure the moment the wind licks against her legs again. In the cold she must appear lesser, the wrath of her existence swallowed and devoured by that of nature ; she is but a whispering frost compared to behemoth tides of winter. Of course, it is perhaps that he had seen her tumble, watched her fall, and waiver in the slinking abyss that he does not balk to her bark.
The she-elf sighs. He cares? How very noble and unexpected – of course, it serves to irritate. Gaze cants upward, attempting to decipher what one could possibly glean from such a question. It does not matter if she tires, if she wails, and if she breaks. She cannot. Options such of those are not afford to the feeble and for all the offerings against false divinity, there lingers no room for error.
A brow arches and fingernails dig into ribs through thin cloth.
❝ Why? Such a thing does not matter. Not now, not truly. For physically, I am fine, which in the end is what matters. ❞ Shattered illusions and faith brought to bear. What had been witnessed, experienced, could not be undone. Outcried, heathen clutched dearly for something that made no sense – the Fade shook her fundamentals and what she had seethed openly about not being possible suddenly… Left her vacant and a different type of cold. ❝ – I did not think you’d be so concerned with me. After all, I almost disregarded you so completely back there. ❞
And yet she didn’t.
WRY SMILE TUGS at rough lips, chapped from the dry coldness of the air. evading the question, he sees, and that’s fine. garrett won’t make her say anything, answer anything she doesn’t want to. he’s not one to push with those he holds in high regard. while he’s always been a sort of rebel towards authority, eyual proved herself to be different. while she was cold, aloof, she held herself as a leader should. it reminds him of knight-commander meredith, sans the red lyrium madness and the need to make every mage around her tranquil.
` yet here we are, ` he replies evenly, ` i’m alive. you’re alive. and we’re here, we’re talking. `
hawke does wonder, however, if she’s avoiding his question because there are things she’d rather not say. he had seen her in the fade. there had been a strange look on her face, there had been some kind of emotion he could not place exuding from her. he will not bring it up for the sake of not invading her comfort zone.
a nod of the head, hawke gestures for her to follow him inside of the battlements. it’d be warmer there, and she wouldn’t risk getting frostbite. she does not have to if she does not want to. knowing eyual, she’ll do whatever she pleases without regard for others. perhaps that’s why she recruited the templars.
the constant presence of templars he finds to be unnerving. when he sided with the mages in kirkwall, he made himself an enemy to templars everywhere. his name is a rallying cry for mage rebels everywhere. how would templars react to knowing he was here?
