@skyheld
The seventh and final day of Arlathvhen dawns bright and clear. Everywhere Fiorelle looks, the forest clearing is alive with motion. Hunters return carrying fresh game, and the fires are already burning, sending the aroma of roasting meat and smoked fish drifting between the trees. For seven days the clans had shared stories, discoveries, grief, and triumphs. Tonight they would share a feast. Many years ago, Fiorelle would have loved this day most.
She had arrived with Keeper Hawen's clan, but even among them she has always felt strangely detached. Fiorelle hoped to reunite with her family here, but that hope had slowly bled out of her over the seven days. Every morning she’d wake up wondering if perhaps today would be the day. Perhaps they would simply arrive late, perhaps someone would know what had become of her people. But all she’d acquired was apologies, sympathy, gentle yet empty reassurances. No one had seen her clan, no Keeper had heard word of them. Again and again, the same answer. By the third day she had stopped asking.
Years. She had spent years searching. And now, standing among more Dalish than she had seen since her childhood, she finds herself no closer than before. Perhaps she never would be. Perhaps they were gone. The thought alone is devastating, world-sundering, yet around her, Arlathvhen continues. Life itself continues. It's supposed to be beautiful. It is beautiful. Why did that make it hurt even more?
Fiorelle finds herself lingering at the edges of things, watching, listening, rarely speaking. She hears fragments of a distant conversation, a hunter recounting a story from the previous Arlathvhen, ten years ago.
"...the Keeper from the Free Marches clan."
"...the one whose First was taken by slavers."
A pause, a sympathetic sound. Someone glances in her direction, then quickly away again. Fiorelle lowers her eyes. She had nothing to show for all those missing years except scars and uncertainty.
She'd accepted a plate of food at some point—she could not even remember from whom—but most of it remains untouched in her lap. Her gaze wanders over the gathering, eventually falling on Ameridan. He is difficult not to notice, not because he sought attention, but because the crowd always seemed to bend around him. The people had spent the better part of three days orbiting him, but now he stands surprisingly alone. For now, at least.
Her gaze does not linger on him. She does not add to the weariness she knows he must carry. Instead, she scans the clearing, looking for an empty opening where she can make a quiet departure.