@sovereignofdeceit // loki & varric
Sure, the grass is always greener — figuratively speaking, at least, even if the yawning jaws of the city, crowded with people like too many crooked teeth, swallowed up any actual greenery within its limits long ago — but it's not so much about any of that.
Kirkwall was full of the familiar. Roads he's travelled half a hundred times — each turn and twist anticipated by feet that can walk the street without any input from his brain. Worn and grimy doorways that have sheltered him from the predictable grey mist of spring rain. Faces that he recognises, motives he understands, favours he's owed.
Skyhold, on the other hand, is a book he hasn't learned to read. Everywhere he goes are faces he's never seen — or worse, the unreadable masks of the Orlesians, little ragged remnants of the Masked Empire drifting beyond its borders, fine and entirely out of place in this stronghold. For all the faint beacons of familiarity — who knew one day he'd look at Cassandra and thank the Maker for a ‘friendly’ face — he's out of his real element here. There's no network just waiting for him to tug at its strings, to apply the right leverage to the right person to keep the right information reaching the right ears (namely, his).
But hey, he's nothing if not personable. A few games of cards here, a few drinks there — Maker knows there’s some days where he’s got nothing else to do, the long stretches of waiting strangely jammed in amongst the rising tensions of chaos beyond the walls — and he starts to build up a little patchwork of recognisable names and faces against the anonymous backdrop of the place.
And some nights, like tonight, he wanders battlements and corridors and gently regrets that there’s nobody hiding in the shadows looking like they’re trying to decide whether mugging him would work out in their favour. Except—
“I don’t suppose you’re hiding in the shadows trying to decide whether mugging me would work out in your favour?” he asks the figure, dark-haired and indistinct, shadows gathered around them like a cloak of darkness. There’s a slight hopefulness to his voice. “I can turn around and pretend I haven’t seen you, if that helps.”
