rivain | it hardly matters now

WHO: Loghain Mac Tir, Iona Lavellan
WHERE: Crestwood
WHEN: Just after the rift is sealed
WARNINGS: idk talk of walking corpses?
NOTES: TBA

A part of Loghain had thought never to see the sun again. He can practically hear the jeering voices talking all about how he should stay in the dank cave or the rain or some other rot. None of those options will be the end result, not if he has anything to say about it. And apparently, he does, for despite how much bile he's had to survive being thrown and spat at him, here he is, working to stop some darkspawn thing from opening up the Fade and dumping it into the world. Here he is, living for ten years longer than anyone ever expected and part of that is, admittedly, out of pure spite.

Living, after all, is far more difficult than dying.

For the first time since he crossed the roads of Crestwood, birds chirp somewhere in the distance. Stepping out into the sunlight with Hawke at his side, he raises a hand to shade his eyes, gazing down the road at what can now be seen glinting in the distance. The fort of Caer Bronach, to start, a glistening bastion of support and protection. The old soldier in him loves it. Maybe he'll survey it for the Inquisition someday.

Or, more likely, he'll simply mark it on the next map he finds and move on. Either way, he glances at Hawke and tilts his head off in the direction of the village proper. It's about time they get out of here before someone spots him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Iona is quiet and distracted as they slowly make their way out of the lake and back towards town. The rift is sealed, and demons and undead no longer plague the area. Which had been their first priority. She’s not entirely sure if the change in weather is directly related or simply timely and coincidental, but it is something to see the sun shining over Crestwood where rain and darkness had fallen.

Her thoughts drift towards the mayor. What he’d done. Condemned innocent people to death by drowning. To try and protect his village. If it was the Blight... he might have kept the death toll from being higher. Had he made the right decision? Was there a right decision in those circumstances? Or was it just a matter of trying desperately to choose the lesser of two evils?

Would she have done the same? Would she condemn some of her clan to die if it meant the rest would live? She’s found herself cast as the Herald of Andraste, with an entire organization looking to her. Will she have to make the same sort of difficult decisions? Will she be able to?

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything. All she can do is try desperately to keep her head above water and not let anyone down. All she can do is try and protect those whose lives are in her hands. Find a way to save as many as possible. ~~The whole damn world. No pressure.~~ All she can do is not use the power she’s found herself in possession of, the power she’s been given, irresponsibly.

And try not to buckle beneath the weight she’s carrying on her shoulders.

Loghain might not have expected to see the Herald herself headed back towards town as he and Hawke skirt around it, but there she is with her small gaggle of companions. It's a lot like watching the Hero of Ferelden's gaggle of companions, everyone following behind in less than orderly paths. Even so, there's a sense of companionship, friendship, and it makes a part of him long for what was lost a long time ago.

"Inquisitor," he greets her. Even though he and Hawke are trying hard not to draw attention from the newly rescued town, he isn't about to turn a cold shoulder to Lavellan. "Didn't think I'd see you on the road before we found the ritual tower."

The ritual tower that is decidedly not here. He isn't complaining, exactly; it's just a surprise.

She offers him a smile. It’s tired, and a little more crooked, but it reaches her lilac eyes. Iona hadn’t expected to see him for a while longer. But it makes sense. Given their need to avoid drawing attention, and the sudden change in weather, they would want to move before someone caught sight of them.

It’s good to see them, though. They’re alive. And relatively unharmed, for which she’s thankful. She would do what she can to protect them; Loghain is wanted by his own Order, simply for being wary. Being suspicious. And his suspicions were correct. It doesn’t sit well with her. She won’t let them have him. Or Hawke.

She huffs a soft laugh. “Well, you know. Had to close a rift in a lake.”

"Why don't we talk while we walk?" Hawke suggests, tilting her head in the direction of the road out. Her tone fully conveys her typical dry humor, the one that Loghain has come to appreciate. "It's so much easier to avoid the armed escort that way."

Loghain nods his agreement and tilts his head in the direction of out. "Good idea," he offers, motioning for Lavellan and her group to follow. Hawke falls back to talk to the others, leaving Loghain and Lavellan to make their way in the lead.

Lavellan looks good, he thinks, for having dealt with the undead problem in Crestwood and whatever was in that rift under the lake. "Not everyone can say that," he points out with a very slight smirk. "How bad was it down there?"

It’s easy to fall into step beside Loghain. She smirks right back at him a little, wry and darkly amused. “No they can’t.” Absently, she rubs at her left hand (and somewhere along the way that’s become a habit she can’t quite break), and then lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. “Although I suspect that the same could be said for a large chunk of my life since the Conclave.”

Her lips press together. “Bad enough.” Undead and demons were more than bad enough, but it was learning why, discovering the reason behind them, what had happened to old Crestwood that had made this rift worse than others.

Loghain barks out his own wry laugh at Lavellan's first words, amused in spite of the situation. She's right, of course. Not everyone can say a lot about what's happened to her, after the Conclave or in her life in general. Whether it's the Maker, Andraste, or a long line of terrible strokes of bad luck, she's a unique one.

He doesn't respond right away, something that's not entirely his usual. Normally, he's good at figuring people out. He knows his gut instinct and it rarely leads him wrong. He doesn't often question it, though given what he did to Ferelden he's sure a lot of people would say he should, so he's more inclined to pay attention to it now that he thinks something might be bothering Lavellan. That she's not telling him everything.

"How bad?" he presses. "And don't bother sugar-coating it."

Don't bother insulting both of us by trying to protect delicate senses is more what he means by that.

“Yes. Because sugar-coating something for an experienced general and Warden is my first thought,” she deadpans. Somewhere Cassandra is making a disapproving noise and doesn’t understand why, probably. She’s not trying to protect anyone’s ‘delicate senses’. She’s just... thinking. Too much. Adapting as best she can and carrying a far greater weight than she’d ever anticipated when she’d gone to attend the Conclave. And the difficult decisions that come with it.

“The mayor flooded Old Crestwood during the Fifth Blight,” she starts, because he’d asked her not to sugar-coat things and that was as good a place to start as any. “They took in refugees infected by the darkspawn taint, and with the infection spreading and darkspawn closing in... he opened the dam and flooded the city and the caves below. The undead that we’ve been fighting are all those that died.”

Loghain smirks at her deadpan response, appreciating it as much as he ever had any of the Hero of Ferelden's barbs. Snark is something he can understand, respect, and return. He never was one to buckle under a verbal spike.

It's not an entirely unfamiliar story. The Blight changed everything for so many of them. For Loghain as much as the common person. He had given the order to retreat, to save his own army and as many as he could rather than let them all die in some stupid boy's fantasy. Yet he had been condemned for it. Who is he to judge this one for doing something far too similar?

"And you're having trouble deciding how to feel about it?" he asks after a moment. It's understandable, really. Her moral code has always been more upright than his. Likely for the best.

it hardly matters now

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