Had the hands of the faithful shook when Andraste had bade them to take up swords and spears and shield in the name of the Maker? Had they been glad, so many Ages ago ( before such things were named, before there was such a thing as Divine ), to grasp steel in the name of something far greater than themselves? Her own hands are shaking when she moves to pull rough-cut sheets of soft linen over the shining, shimmering blades — and the reflection she sees in the metal, warped and smudged, is and is not her own. There is blood upon her temples, her jaw, her nose — eyes blown and red; haunted, hunted — the same shine upon him —
“ Is all well, my Lady? ”
Pale hands drop the fabric as though it had burned her, fingers rubbing at her palms and for a moment, the Good Lady stands as still as stone; shoulders rising and falling with gentle breath. Is all well? Truly, she does not know. Nearly three moons had come and gone over the white-washed stone of Hightown since she had stepped into the shadow of the Gallows again. No more bolder than she ever had been, but just as desperate. It did not help that the Good Lady’s sleep had not been peaceful ( nights spent soothing and praying; drying eyes that were so like her own, helpless in the face of what truly ailed her Elizabeth ); it did not help that she was nervous, a feeling so very unlike her — and perhaps it had to do with the Knight-Commander herself, and how so very difficult and distracting it could be, to stand and speak in such a beautiful woman’s presence. All things she would pray upon later, in the comfort and quiet of her own chambers. The Maker had marked her path to be a difficult one — but the reward, when it came, would be sweet. It had to be.
The trembling in her fingers has stopped; wrapped tight ‘round her wrist as she takes a breath, slow and steady. “ I am fine, Serah. Thank you. ” It is a mere exchange of politeness; mindless in nature. The only thing that unites them is a shared homeland; abandoned in the face of Darkspawn and demons — if only King Cailan still drew breath, we would not have had to leave. Dead is dead. There is nothing left now; nothing, nothing — and still so many clung to the hope of returning. It was all they had left, she thinks; glancing at the care worn face of one of her smiths. Halvor, was it? Their pride, their hope — and the Good Lady thinks in a voice that is not entirely her own, his hand upon the back of her neck, his breath ( rank, rotting ) against her cheek. Time rots everything. Even hope.
Her own is a tenuous thing — much like her faith; shaken and unsure. All in the Maker’s plan. He would not have guided her here, had He not wanted her here. He would not have granted her an audience with one of His most exalted swords, had He not wished her to serve. The Good Lady knows she ought not to be nervous — not here, not now; after weeks and months of toil. It was the Maker who would walk beside her just as He had when the faithful had taken up arms for the first time, and marched in His name. And though the Good Lady knows, too, that her smiths are artists in their own right; is it so wrong to pray for divine intervention — for neither a flaw or a fault to be found. She’d gone without sleep; inspecting them; and though her eyes ached and her hands were not steady, it would have to do.
And if the Maker was kind enough, it would do; winding a path through Kirkwall that she hopes will one day become far more familiar to her; from bleached cobbled streets, manicured and cleaned until they shone in the afternoon sun to the packed dirt of Lowtown; worn and devoid of greenery, of life in the way that the lower city always had been, mirrored in the haggard faces of its inhabitants. She had looked the same the day they had come to port; seeing the gilded statues rise ominous and salt-streaked from the mist — pinched and harrowed by famine and fear. How the Good Lady pities them. She presses onwards, all the same; in the narrow boat with her men and wears; praying amidst the salt and smoke even now, to a god that she fears only sometimes hears her.
The Gallows is alive in its own way; a malformed heart perhaps; but a living one — beating and breathing with its own rhythms; new recruits and the steady march of feet. Her own are a break in the pattern, the movement; quick and quiet, moving as a ghost does as she follows the dull steel back of a Templar. Is it her wares she is nervous of, or is it the thought of seeing @idolbound once more that twists in her stomach and makes her heart thunder? It takes the Good Lady a moment to untie the silent knot in her throat, drinking in the Knight-Commander — her golden curls, the slope of her nose, the curve of her lips; how the light streaming in behind her seemed to illuminate; casting a votive halo. Blessed by the Maker Himself, surely; and is it a sin to allow herself a moment to drink her in, lingering at the door with a ringed hand upon the stone wall, before she at last speaks?
“ Good afternoon, Knight-Commander. ” Her voice is soft when she finds it; low — intimate in its own way, perhaps; and the Good Lady clears her throat before crossing the threshold in her mourning weeds. When she speaks again, it is too much and too fast; as though afraid she will be told to be silent. “ Have you fared well these past months? I thought it — I thought it prudent to deliver this myself; and if it pleases, well; I assume we will be seeing far more of each other. ”
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