Sanctuary
Hey! I've been working on this piece for Lydia for about a week now (though it's been plaguing my brain for a few months) and I'm really excited to share it! Also, a big shoutout to @rooks-dagger for helping me with the brainstorming process!
This story, called "Sanctuary," takes place eight years after the previous installments in my Lydia series. It focuses on the events that led Lydia to leaving Crestwood and joining the Wardens.
If you're interested in my other pieces, you can read them here! They're listed chronologically from the moment Lydia escaped from Kinloch Hold, and each story in the series connects (with the outlier being "Torn")!
Story and gentle tags for visibility under the cut!
Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you.
The chalice is cold to the touch, yet breath from the dark liquid swirling within is warm. Lydia stares deep into it. She’d gathered the ingredients herself. Added to the concoction herself. But it doesn’t feel right to hold it, not when she so clearly remembers what had to be done to get it. She’d never seen darkspawn before. She’d heard the stories, sure, but the ice she felt stilling her blood at the sight of them betrayed the fantasy she’d so comfortably lived in until then. It was a test, of course. She knew that. They were given vials, and the act of filling them was almost as sickening as the act of killing them. Unnaturally dark blood swilling thickly behind glass. Static lingering under her skin long after lightning silenced them.
When they returned to Weisshaupt, the senior Warden appointed to them took the vials without a second thought, horror having been numbed by years of routine. Lyrium was the next ingredient. The other recruits joked about Lydia having some. They shoved her a bit, laughing, insisting that she offer up her stash. They joked that her kind was always hiding something up their sleeves. Always scheming. It made her hate them. Made her wish to show them exactly what her magic tasted like. Why she didn’t need lyrium to hurt them.
But it doesn’t matter anymore. Lydia had watched two of them go down before her, convulsing with eyes rolled back as blood leaked from their mouths. The senior Warden had whispered apologies to them, bowing his head forward ever so slightly. He handed the chalice to Lydia next, unblinking, as though the passing of life meant nothing to him. He was expectant. Lydia had never seen someone express so much compassion for a fallen brother, yet such a disconnect from the lives themselves, in just one look. The two who drank before her lay still on the ground. Failures.
A forced, steady breath sends steam into the frigid air. Fingers curl and tense around the chalice, which feels heavier by the second. In all her years studying the Grey Wardens and trying to uncover the secret behind the Joining ritual, Lydia never could have expected this was it. Why would they poison themselves like this? She knows why. She was told why. And yet…
A glance up at the senior Warden. He watches her with a vacant sort of concern. Odd, really. But the glittering of his sword in the moonlight, partially unsheathed as though threatening her to err, tells her that it’s time. It sends an ancient and primal fear down her spine. She looks back down. It calls to her. Whispers to her. Begs to mingle with her blood. With her being. She tries to think of the wind brushing through her hair, cut short to avoid being recognized. Her knees wobble beneath her. How fitting that they would threaten to give up on her now, after all she did to get here. The running. The hiding. The endless days and nights of travel. She’d done it before, of course, long ago. Back when her future seemed so uncertain. Back when she struggled to know who she was. But she knows who she is now.
Or does she?
How would it feel to fall like they did, never to wake? What would it be like for the taint to spread through her? To contaminate every atom, every drop of blood? Would it weigh her down? Burn her up inside? Would it feel as foreign to her as fresh air and sunlight once did all those years ago? Would her final thought be of Warden Surana? Would it be of the Circle? Or, would it be of her mother and father? Oh.
Her arms seem to resist as she lifts the chalice to her lips. It feels wrong to let the blood inside. Every muscle in her body tenses at once. A sharp chill meets a burning flame. Her electricity coursing through her. But it’s wrong. Thick. Heavy. Sickening.
What would they think of her, if were they to see her now? What would they think of her, their only living child, after the way she left them? Quietly, in the night, as though they meant nothing to her. She didn’t even say goodbye.
Fingers tremble as she struggles to keep hold of the chalice. She grits her teeth– head exploding in light and fire ten times more painful than she’s ever experienced, until there’s nothing else before her.
The chalice is taken from her hands as her legs finally give out, and she crumples to the ground beside the fallen recruits. The blight seeps down her throat and settles in her stomach, and she becomes lead. The only movement she makes are convulsions, as though being puppeted by her own magic.
~
Eight years was too short.
For a long time, she struggled with belonging. She struggled knowing that she was the missing piece of a puzzle that had long been broken. She remembered how overwhelming it felt to be so totally loved and accepted. She remembered how it felt to be fully wrapped in their embrace, to be seen as someone. To be cherished, adored, protected.
But too much of a good thing…
She felt that there was something more for her out there. She felt that she’d been saved by Warden Surana all those years for a reason. She felt she should take the chances given to her and dedicate her life to something else. Something bigger than herself. Something that didn’t involve herding cattle or harvesting vegetables.
And so eight years became, after a while, too long.
Free to come and go as she pleased. Free to dress how she liked, to eat when she liked. Free to speak her mind, her heart. Free to be a mage, to practice magic, to make mistakes. She’d never felt so trapped.
She would hear them, her mother and father, talking from her room upstairs. The room had changed over the years– cozier, more lived in. Less full of ghosts, of echoes from a time before the Circle. A time when the space was shared. Her parents’ conversations, spoken in hushed whispers, however, rarely ever changed. They were often about her, in one way or another. Always positive. Always loving. But lately, they’d been concerned about her. She’d been eating less, sleeping in later. Spending more time indoors. They knew how much she loved being outside. She normally spent most of her waking hours out there, exploring. But she’d been in her room more often than not recently.
When Lydia finally had enough of not being involved in their conversation, she put her book down. She’d been reading through The History of the Grey, reviewing and editing– always editing– her self-added entry on the Fifth Blight.
As she reached the landing, her parents visibly straightened. Her father cleared his throat as if to hide what he was saying. Typical. They greeted her. Her mother offered breakfast. She passed them both and went to put her shoes on. Denied breakfast. Denied again when her mother pressed the envelope. She shrugged when her father asked her where her staff was and shook her head when her mother asked if she was meeting with someone today. She left without another word, channeling mana to keep herself warm, underdressed in the growing cold.
She’d been getting that question a lot lately. “Why don’t you make some friends in town, Coco Puff?” “Why don’t you invite someone your age to go for dinner, or for a drink?” “Wouldn’t you like to take your studies into town? Maybe you’ll meet someone of a similar mind?” “Have you met anyone ‘of interest’ lately, Lydia?”
Lydia knew what they wanted from her, of course. Meet someone nice. Fall in love. Settle down. Start a family. Like they did. Lydia left out a rueful laugh at that. She must have seemed like an old maiden to them, at 23. And maybe she was. Her mother and father had, after all, met young. Married young. Had their first child young. Theo. She never got to meet him. Illness took him years before she was even born, early in his life, as the blight had Savis, years later. She was living in the Circle by then. Locked away like an animal. Maximum security for a five-year-old who didn’t even know how to read yet, all for the crime of magic. She tried to remember him when she came home. They’d been close before, allegedly. But no. The Circle had taken her just as much as the blight had taken him. If Surana had been there… but she hadn’t been. It was no use thinking about it.
Whispers spread within Crestwood that morning. Lydia bristled against them as she walked into town. Something about the inn. Something about a visitor. She could’ve sworn she heard the words “Grey Warden.”
Her heart leapt into her chest. A Grey Warden? Here? In Crestwood? She’d seen them in Crestwood before, of course. One of them, anyway. When she was 16. It was around the time that the Inquisition first passed through.
Suddenly filled with an aching curiosity, she asked someone, an older woman who always smiled when Lydia spoke with her. And the rumor was confirmed. A Grey Warden. Just one. A man (Lydia sulked when she heard that, disappointed that it wouldn’t be Surana). He was staying at the inn for a few nights to rest, and then would regroup with his patrol.
Lydia could’ve sworn her heart would shoot out of her chest as her eyes fell on the inn. That’s where he was. The Grey Warden. If she could just talk with him… If she could ask him her questions. About the heroism. About the honor. About where Surana was. Would he take her with him? Much as she wanted to kick that door down and demand an audience with him, she didn’t. Her legs carried her home instead, almost automatically, a childlike grin plastered on her face. Her parents didn’t question her when she came down from over the hill. They just smiled at her, and then at each other. Nothing about what she did, or who she met.
And Lydia locked herself in her room for the rest of the day, nose buried in The History of the Grey. Her stomach squirmed excitedly at the thought of what finally, finally could be.
The next few days were much the same. Lydia rushed through her chores (or ignored them altogether) so she could go into Crestwood, hoping for a glimpse of the Grey Warden. She saw him once, his blonde hair shaved down on the sides of his head. Broad shoulders bearing the griffon’s crest. She never spoke to him, nor did she know how long he would remain.
She was all smiles at home, helping her father bake bread and feed the animals, sitting by the fire with her mother in the evenings and sharing tea with her in the early mornings. She could see their shoulders relax the more she spoke with them, the more time she spent with them. At night, after they went to bed, Lydia would take her staff and sneak off to practice her magic. She would run through the steps, leaf through tomes bought for her over eight birthdays. She tempered her storms, sharpened her aim, danced with the lightning that now flowed so seamlessly through her veins. Her parents smiled so lovingly at her during the day. She knew they’d happy to see her putting more effort into her magical training. They always encouraged her to study and learn. But she kept it a secret nonetheless, because how could she tell them what all that effort was really for?
As loving as they were. As supportive as they were. They didn’t understand her. How could they? For all that they were, for all the kindness and love they’d shown her since she left the Circle, they refused to focus on just that. The Circle.
They’d love to pretend that it never happened. That Lydia had always been with them. That those ten years of her absence, of her imprisonment, were just a dream. She supposed she couldn’t blame them. She, too, wanted nothing more than to forget all of it, but she couldn’t. The Circle was permanently engraved in her. Every nightmare. Every anxiety. Every hair out of place. It was as much a part of her as the magic that put her there.
They never asked, and so she never shared. Better to leave those horrors behind the walls of a fallen tower, forever frozen in memory in the middle of a lake.
Static lingered under her skin the morning she finally decided to speak with the Warden. She pushed herself the night before, too much. Until electricity burned her up inside and left her paralyzed on the floor. But she was satisfied with her skill, with her strength. Her mother and father had been whispering about her again, early. They shared knowing smiles with each other and excused her from her chores as she hurried out the door.
She was pleased to find the Warden by one of the stalls in town, buying fruit. She mustered up the courage to approach him, hands clenching and unclenching in her shirt. He quirked an eyebrow when she greeted him. “Ah, the mage,” he had said. Someone must have told him. But she didn’t let that intimidate her. He smiled at her as she straightened, chin up, shoulders back, and they walked together.
She clung to his every word. Watched his every movement. He was an archer, he told her. He was born in Denerim– a first-generation surfacer. He’d caught the blight during the siege on Fort Drakon in 9:31, but the Hero of Ferelden– Eva Surana– had performed the Joining ritual on him and a few others. Saved his life. Lydia nearly jumped at that. Forgot herself for a moment, hands waving excitedly in the air as she recounted her experience with Warden Surana. Her age surprised him– five. Hiding in a cupboard as abominations ran rampant through the Circle halls. Surana and her friends found her. Holding Surana’s hand, a fellow mage of the Circle, as she was led to safety. The endless, endless inspiration, admiration, and determination that followed her in the eighteen years since.
And so they talked until the sun settled below the rolling hills. They spoke of honor. Of brotherhood. They spoke of challenges and of overcoming them. She showed him her magic, locked in a dance with her lightning, as she’d done so many times before. Watched the expression of awe play on his features, unable to hide it. The powers of a free mage, unencumbered by old chains. And she was proud of it. In return, he spoke of his duties. How being a Grey Warden had given him a sense of purpose and belonging he’d never felt before, and her heart fluttered. An apostate. A surface dwarf. And they’d been touched by the same woman. They both wanted to make Surana proud. To follow in her footsteps. He bought her dinner. They got drunk on ale. And he told her he’d be in Crestwood for another week while he waited for his patrol to ready passage back to Weisshaupt. That she was welcome to join him, too, if she really wanted to be a Grey Warden.
The journey back home was equal parts a joyful walk and a drunken stumble.
Her mother and father were awake when she walked through the door. Her mother already had her robe over her pajamas, but her father was fully dressed, boots on. They didn’t smile. Lydia didn’t like the way their gazes fell on her. She removed her shoes. She didn’t realize how late it was.
“Where were you?” Her mother asked. Lydia removed her jacket and hung it up.
“Out.”
“Out?”
“I was in town. It’s alright.”
“Lydia, we would’ve liked to have known you’d be home so late,” her father said.
“Your father was about to go looking for you,” her mother added. Lydia sighed. Always the tit-for-tat with those two. She looked at them. Their eyes were tired, and their hair was duller in color than when she first met them. She worried her lip.
“I didn’t expect to be home so late. I… met somebody.” Her heart leapt at their sudden smiles, and they exchanged hopeful glances. Lydia knew they’d be happy for her. She knew they’d support this next, this most important stepping stone in her life. The alcohol still buzzed pleasantly in her head.
“Really?” her mother said, “Who?”
“A Grey Warden,” Lydia announced, shoulders back just as she’d held them earlier. “The one who’s been staying in town. He invited me to join him on his trip back to Weisshaupt, to become a Grey Warden like him. And… and I said yes. I’m leaving next week.”
Their smiles dropped simultaneously, and the silence that suddenly filled the little house grew heavier by the second, stretching for longer and longer. Lydia shifted in place as she watched them. When her mother and father finally looked at each other, as though sending telepathic messages, Lydia’s confidence wavered. Her hands clenched in her shirt. She swallowed, the residual taste of ale bitter on her tongue.
“No.” Her father finally said, and Lydia’s blood ran cold.
“No?” She asked. Why would he say that to her? She couldn’t imagine… he never… he was always supportive! She looked over to her mother, only to see her standing with her hands on her hips, her jaw set. So both of them, then?
“No,” he said again, “why would you want to go to Weisshaupt? Do you have any idea how far it is?”
“I want to be a-”
“A Grey Warden. Lydia, there’s no Blight.”
“So? Being a Grey Warden isn’t just about stopping the Blight.”
“Well, what is it about, then?” Her mother chimed in. “When do you ever hear about them when there isn’t a Blight? What use is there for them?”
Lydia flexed her fingers. “To help people, Mama. To protect them.” She looked at her, eyes pleading. She loved both her parents, but she always had a special bond with her mother. It hurt to see that she was so against Lydia’s wishes.
“Coco Puff… Lydia… You can help people from right here in Crestwood. You have!”
“I know. I just. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more for me out there. That I can do some real good.”
“The Maker brought you back home to us to live freely, Lydia. To be safe.” Her father said. Concern played on his face, and it made Lydia’s heart ache. But she pressed.
“The Maker also made me a mage, which is what landed me in the Circle.”
Well, she didn’t mean to say it, but she did. Her mother and father bristled at the word. Of course. Maker forbid she remind them. Oh, that got her angry. Cold blood became hot. Static rose, the alcohol suddenly not the only thing humming in her veins.
The pause stretched on almost enough for Lydia to regret mentioning it. She knew it was a sore spot. A failure of her parents. But sore as it was for them, it was doubly so for her.
What’s worse? They deflected.
“Do you even know what Grey Wardens do? They fight those… things. Darkspawn.” Her mother said. She was hugging herself. Lydia knew that her parents had never seen darkspawn before, but they knew the devastation they brought.
“I know the Wardens plenty, Mama. More than you or dad.”
Her father laughed, wearing a chastising look she’d only seen a handful of times. Her eyes snapped to him. It just made her angrier.
“One history book on the Grey Wardens isn’t the same thing as real life. No matter how many times you’ve read it!” He exclaimed. She took a shallow breath. The lightning in her veins became harder to ignore. She could hear the faint snapping as it jumped between her fingertips.
“How would you know anything about-”
“How would you know anything about it?” Her mother interjected, putting an arm in front of her father and stepping forward. Her brow was creased, her voice raised. Her bravado made it seem as though she was looking down at Lydia, despite being half a head shorter than her. “Lydia, you don’t know anything about the world outside of Crestwood!”
Hands clenched, heat rising quickly. Tension in her chest pulled taut. Snapping. Finally snapping.
“And whose fucking fault is that, huh?” Lydia shouted.
“Lydia…” her father started, softly. But she didn’t stop.
“No. Whose fault is it that I don’t know the world? That I missed out on so much in my life?”
Her mother and father exchanged looks again. Oh, she hated when they did that. Excluded her from their secret language.
“Look at me!” Lydia shouted, and their eyes fell back upon her, both laden with tears. She was certain she was crying, too.
“Lydia, we’re sorry,” her father said, gentler now. He reached for her, hand outstretched as though to soothe her, but she took a step back, and he pulled back as well. “You have to understand. Joining the Wardens would be very dangerous. We don’t want that for you. We want you to be safe.”
“Yes, Coco Puff. We’re just trying to protect you.” Her mother continued.
“Protect me?” She released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. The snapping between her fingers continued.
“Yes!”
“Where were you when I needed you to protect me then? When I was defenseless? When the Templars came and took me, and locked me in Kinloch Hold when I was five?”
Her mother and father were really crying now, tears streaming from downcast faces and dripping onto the floor. They struggled to look at her. They knew the answer to her question, and knew she knew it, too.
“You always told me you had no choice. That it was the hardest thing you ever did, that you regretted it. But you did it. You called them on me.” Lydia clenched her hands again, and electricity spiked, snapping just loud enough for them to hear it. Her father kept his eyes on the floor. Her mother looked at the magic jumping on her daughter’s hands.
“I’ve heard stories,” Lydia continued, “I know of mages who live free in the world, never having even seen a Circle tower. Their parents had a choice, too, and they chose to protect them by protecting them. But you didn’t. And it cost you both me and Savis.”
“Lydia…”
“You weren’t there when I had nightmares, or when I was being beaten by Templars. You weren’t there for the bullying. You didn’t protect me when I slept at night, or hide me from giant spiders in the stockrooms, or nurse me back to health when magic lessons exploded in my face and left me burned. You didn’t protect me when abominations killed nearly everyone in Kinloch Hold. You didn’t help me when the mages ran, when the Circle fell. You didn’t smash my phylactery. You didn’t pull me from Lake Calenhad when I fell in, or watch over me during those weeks in the wilds. You didn’t save me from the bear. Everything I did, I did on my own. You can’t know. You could never know.”
The silence continued. Lydia hated it. Magic spiked again, a clap of thunder rattling the walls of the little cottage as her lightning threatened to reach up to meet it. Both of her parents flinched in surprise, and Lydia scoffed.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Look at you! Do you think I would really hurt you, or that I would want to?” She shouted. There was another clap of thunder, but Lydia stilled it. She shook the magic from her hands, lightning fizzling out. The air in the cottage was humid, heavy. But nothing more. She was in control.
“Lydia…” Another plea. Lydia shook her head, wiping tears from her eyes with her forearm.
“You don’t get to pretend that you’ve protected me this whole time. You don’t get to claim that. You can’t tell me how to protect myself now.” She stormed past them, breathing heavily as she started up the stairs. But she paused when her father cleared his throat. She didn’t look up.
“You’ll stay home,” he said, “and will not leave the farm until further notice.”
She said nothing. Instead, she climbed up the stairs, went to her room, and slammed the door.
She wondered how long they whispered about her before coming to her room the next morning.
They offered apologies through the door when she denied them entry. Told her that they loved her. Wanted her to be happy. Wanted her to be safe. They told her she was, as always, free to come and go as she pleased. That they’d be there to talk to her when she was ready.
But she’d been ready for years, and they never understood. Lydia hadn’t slept that night. She stewed for hours before her parents even attempted to speak to her. Ran back through her memory. The exploring. The trips. The bear. The phylactery. The abominations. Surana. Always Surana. What would she want for Lydia, if she could see her now? Would she be happy to see that the life she saved was being wasted away on a farm in Ferelden? Would she see herself in Lydia as Lydia saw herself in Surana? That Warden… He’d been touched by her, too. Given a second chance at life by her, too. And he did something with it. He followed in her footsteps. Oh, how Lydia longed to do the same.
But… How could she? When her parents came to speak to her, she sat on her bed with her eyes closed and her arms crossed. Their voices were slightly muffled through the wooden door, but Lydia felt the warmth in their words. They loved her. They had her best interest at heart, she knew that. And her head ached, too. Perhaps the ale last night didn’t help with the situation. How could she leave them after all they’d done for her? Their youngest child. Their only child. She’d stay in Crestwood for them.
It took her a while to shake it off and go downstairs. Though she wouldn’t leave Crestwood, she wouldn’t apologize for what she said last night, either. And, judging by the way her mother tensed when she saw her, and the way her father averted his gaze, they knew she wouldn’t, either. Good. They needed to hear it.
She played the part. The obedient child. The loving daughter. The mild-mannered Lydia they knew and loved. She did her chores and helped around the farm. She made dinner and washed dishes. Used her magic to light the fireplace and carry heavy pails, to chill water and milk. She nodded when her father asked her to fix something. Smiled when her mother asked to join her when she read. She didn’t say much to them. She wouldn’t. What more was there to say? She knew they felt it, too. Any conversation they started with her was short. Quiet. She wondered if they hated her for exposing their guilt. Or if they hated having to force her hand to stay. She didn’t care. She resented them. She loved them. She wanted them to be happy.
It tore her up inside.
And the days passed. Lydia sat in her room the night that the Warden said he would be leaving with his comrades. She knew she would miss it. She tried to distract herself by studying the tome she got for her last birthday. Tried to focus on the jagged dance of lightning in the palm of her hand. On the sensation of electricity running along her arm. But as the moons settled in the sky, she knew that he was gone. Something burned within her at the thought of it, and she closed her book, her spell fading away. He left her behind. Just like that. Just like she was left behind years ago, after she escaped the Circle.
She remembered them, the other mages. There were eight others, not including the one who drowned in the lake. They wanted to join the rebellion. Lydia had frozen, and they left her. They left without any care. Left her to defend herself in the wilds at just 15. A girl who, before then, had never even been outside. She remembered how alone she felt after they left. How scared she was as they grew smaller in the distance, her own feet too stubborn to carry her towards them.
Fear. That’s all she knew back then. This was different. This was rage. She felt herself grow hotter and hotter, hatred swimming uncontrollably. How could they force her to stay here? How could they force her to sit on her hands when opportunity came knocking for her? How could they deny her her dream? The only thing she ever wanted? The only thing that kept her going for all those years in the Circle? And she let them. She’d frozen. And the Warden left.
Night turned to morning quickly. She worked in the fields. Did the Warden think of her as he departed? Did he see promise in her, only for it to turn to disappointment? She looked out in the direction of town. All she could see were the rolling hills and her father, chopping wood in the distance. How dare he? How dare they both? How could they do that to her? Damn them.
Would she have even been taken seriously, had she told the Warden that her mom and dad refused to let her go? He probably would have laughed at her. For all her experience. For all her strength. Was she just a child to him? It made her want to raze the fields. To rain lightning from the sky, just to prove her worth.
Her father brought the axe down on a log. In the distance, her mother called them both for breakfast.
She remembered being attacked when she changed her mind and tried to join her fellow mages. She’d given up. It was her own damn fault that she was left to the wilds. She wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. No one, no one, not some Warden, not even her parents, would keep her from what she wanted.
She ate breakfast. Went back to the fields. Tended the animals. She cooked dinner and ate with her parents in silence. She cleaned up and went to her room without a word. She sat there, staring at the wall. Waited for the sun to set and for moonlight to shine into the room. She’d done it before. Moved on her own. Survived on her own. She was more prepared now. Smarter, stronger. A free mage. A free woman. And she would be a Grey Warden, too, soon enough.
She wrote them a note. Tried to ignore the breaking of her heart as she explained what she had to do, and why. She pulled her pack from under her bed, dusty from lack of use. She packed what she could. What she thought was important. She strapped her staff to her back and a knife to her belt. Then, she grabbed the book. The History of the Grey. She would no longer need it. Finally, finally, she would join the heroes written about within. Garahel. Eva Surana. It hurt to place it on her bed. She’d been with that book longer than she’d been with anything or anyone else. But leaving it… Well, she hoped her parents would understand.
Lydia rested the note on top of the book. She didn’t allow herself to scan the page again. She didn’t want to change a thing. She didn’t want to second-guess herself. She kept it out of her line of sight as she gathered the rest of her things.
Then, when she was sure that her parents were asleep, she crept down the stairs, slipped through the door, and fled into the night.
~
Her head is splitting, and when she opens her eyes, she sees that she’s no longer in the courtyard, but lying on her cot. Her body is hot, and there’s something else, too. Something dark. Something whispering at the edge of her mind. She groans as she sits up and sees that another woman, one of the other recruits, is asleep on the cot across from hers. But that’s it. Out of the six who left this evening for the Joining, it was just them two left.
There’s someone else in the room, too. An older man. The senior Grey Warden who administered the Joining. He offers a small smile as their eyes meet, and he nods to her. Lydia adjusts herself on the cot as he rises to his feet. He crosses the room towards her and outstretches his hand. At first, Lydia thinks he might help her up, but instead, he shakes her hand. She feels the movement ripple painfully through her.
“From this moment forth, you are now a Grey Warden,” he says, “Welcome.”
Gentle tags: @rooks-dagger, @trashwithvariety, @hellomehlo, @serbarris, @handsignals, @master-of-the-elements, @in-the-drowning-deep, @the-bear-and-his-sunbird, @pixiedurango, @blackwall-my-tiny-husband, @epiphany-jones, @davrinsleftpectoral, @hedwigoprah, @curiouswisp, @mushrooms-x-moss, @trash-nerd, @sandcastlekings, @loveydoveymerrillsabrae, @rookamell, @augustnugs @lycheecatee, @bring-thelight, @waxlyricalmoon, @notyourmamasdeerbat, @cimmanombagel
