there’s already four mugs in front of him. his tolerance is, unfortunately, too high for it to be as effective as he wants it to be. he’s spent far more money than he should have, but he’s now head of house tethras. he can do whatever he wants with that money, can’t he?
she’s one of the few who would show up, and the only person he’d let in. he knows exactly how the others will treat this. anders already offered condolences when varric fled from the scene in a silence that he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life. aveline’s will be the most sincere, because she can’t help it, and he’ll squeeze her fingers when she puts her hand on his shoulder. isabela and fenris will have few words, and he expects nothing less from them. merrill already came by, but he sent her off, saying he wasn’t good company, and he’ll see her soon. she’ll say something, or give him something — he doesn’t know when, but he knows it’ll come eventually — and he’ll have to swallow down his sorrow, smile and thank her. but hawke — he can’t guess her as well as everyone else. but the wave of gratitude he feels when she sits down next to him tells him this is what should be happening. she’s the only one of them that might come close to understanding, but even sybil, in her infinite misfortune, hasn’t had to be the one to end her sibling’s life.
taking the offered drink, he simply holds it in front of him, cradling it in his hands and looking into it, seeing only dead eyes and a tethras nose. his voice is rough. ‘ probably not. ‘
Fresh in Kirkwall, she was turned criminal --- and she did this, too. Drank too much and turned reclusive, blaming herself for a failure that wasn’t hers to take. ( not that she’ll ever realize that the blame oughtn’t be her burden. ) She carried self - loathing like a wound, and while it’s scarred over and turned keloid, it’s never properly healed. There was no one there to tend to it, mother still resenting her and brother much the same.
At least for the year she’d though Carver dead, Varric had been there for her. And Anders, and Merrill, and Aveline, but --- Varric had been the most steadfast. Sybil thinks it only fair that she return the favor.
He stairs into his mug and seems to lose himself; she doesn’t know how to heal this suffering. She wishes she was Bethany, sharp and gentle all at once. She’d know. Sybil tries, though. As she always does. “------------ You would have liked my sister, I think,” she finally says. Thinking of Bethany hurts her and maybe it’s sick that she wants that, but if Sybil is going to help him then she needs to feel this. ( as if she isn’t always. ) Her suffering has always been acceptable if it was for the sake of someone else. There’s a smile on her face despite her pain, and that should be enough for most people. There’s love in her eyes, too, and she hopes that will be enough for Varric.
Talking about dead siblings probably isn’t the best move to make here. But it feels like he needs what Bethany could have been. “She was funnier than me, and fiercer. She would have broken into some Hightown spot to get you decent drink, at least.”
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