rivain | We could make the world better. It's just easier to shut our eyes.

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We could make the world better. It's just easier to shut our eyes.

WHO: Ginevra Trevelyan, Blackwall
WHERE: Skyhold | Stables
WHEN: Just following Revelations and the judging
WARNINGS: Spoilers for Blackwall's companion quest and potential talk of murder and betrayal

Disappointment hangs over everything. He can feel it as readily as the wind blowing gently through the stable loft.

Blackwall knows he had betrayed so much for so little. A long time ago he should have come clean, but he hadn't and now he has to lie in the muddy bed that he's made. Sometimes he can still feel their blood on his hands, especially when he washes up. Blood money, blood drinks, a blood-bought life. It had been enough until the real Blackwall found him, gave him a new purpose and a chance at a new life. Now he doesn't know who he is, or what. Is he a monster? Yes. Is there hope for the redemption he craves? He doesn't know. Isn't even sure he wants to find out.

But he's here tonight, up in the loft, to find out anyway because the one person he loves more than anything or anyone else in the world is coming. He hopes. He'd asked her to meet him up here to talk, though he hadn't asked for confirmation that she would or would not come. He'd left that up to her to decide later. Now that later has come, he feels the sting of anxious worry. The fear is real that she might still leave him and he can't say that he would blame her.

He did warn her that he would break her heart.

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It's harder than she'd thought it'd be. Everything, from the moment he left her in the stables, has been harder than she thought. No, that's not true. When Cullen asked her what she wanted to do, that had been easy. Get him out, she had said and so her command had gone. Josephine had pulled strings because, yes, Celene fucking owes her, and he'd been released into her own custody. He. Him. Blackwall. Rainier.

It'd been hard to see him in chains. Hard to pronounce a judgement, a ruling. Easy to kiss him, though, even if dealing with people's reactions to her after hasn't been that simple. Ginevra's getting used to that, though. And she loves him, she loves him. She loves him and she made her choice there, in front of everyone. But she's not some wide-eyed little girl; she's nearly thirty-one, a mage, a noble, an Inquisitor with all the associated political horseshit. It's not going to be an easy choice to live with, deal with, not the least because she and him really need to talk.

Him. Blackwall. Thom Rainier.

Ginevra walks towards the stables, head bowed as she turns everything over and over in her mind. It's hard, too. She loves him but he hurt her, Andraste's mercy, how he hurt her.

Her boots are quiet on the stairs leading up to the loft, but not silent. A creaking of wood, creaking of leather, hard tap of heel. Everything is quiet now, so everything is louder than maybe it should be. The beating of her heart, the rustle of her clothing. Her breath. Her voice, when she calls out for him.

"Thom?"

Hearing that particular name spoken in that voice is at once both strange and utterly terrifying. He hasn't been Thom Rainier in years, not since that fateful day. Or days, really. It was a set of days that strung him along, a set in which he lost his life, his name, and himself. He built a new one, but now he's lost that, too. It would have been easier had she left him in that prison to rot until his execution. But she didn't. Now he has to live with this, too.

Some days living with it is almost too hard to bear. Being dead would have been more merciful.

But a dead man would not have been able to love and he can't deny that loving Ginny has been the best thing that ever happened to him. Ginevra. The Inquisitor. Maker's tears, he'll have to be formal again.

"I am here," he says, stepping forward just a little. "I thought this would be a better place to talk than the tavern. Fewer people to overhear."

He's nervous, of course. Why wouldn't he be? She holds him in her hand and could crush him just as easily as anyone else in the world with one breath, one word. And if not she, then anyone else she could delegate the task to. Literally anyone would be willing to kill him, if not because she asked it, then because of what he's done.

And honestly? He could hardly blame them.

It feels odd to say. Thom. Rainier. It should be Blackwall but then, currently, that feels as hollow as anything else. As hollow as so much of what he's said to her.

"A good thing the horses can't talk," she says. Lightly, as if it's a joke. (Punchline: everyone at Skyhold has had enough to talk about already.)

He steps closer and for a moment, she just looks at him. Her face is neutral, expression hidden away and her pale eyes unreadable. She hasn't had to use her Circle Face for a while, but it comes in useful. Particularly here, now, with him. Rainier. Blackwall. She loves him and she doesn't know who he is. He's the only person she's ever taken to her bed, and he warned her, but this isn't what she thought he meant. He loves her. Not enough to tell her the truth, but enough to die for the example of her. Except that isn't love, is it? Not really. That's adoration of an ideal, when she thought he'd been one of the few to really see her.

"What did you think would happen once I found out you'd been executed? And don't tell me I shouldn't have. I have Leliana, I would have found out."

If the situation were more normal, he likely would laugh at that joke. It's funny in its own way. But they don't have time or the energy for jokes. There's too much to go over. So he swallows that thought, that passing laugh bubbling up in his throat, and instead focuses on everything else, on her in front of him because he always just sees her. He never sees the Herald or the Inquisitor or whatever else anyone might see in her. That was never a lie. Only his past.

It wasn't an ideal that he loved. He loved, loves, the woman herself, everything that makes Ginevra Trevelyan. He always will. But it's hard to convince someone of that after everything he's done to hurt her.

"I had hoped you would... find the means to move on," he admits, his gaze dropping, self-deprecation falling from his lips. "Find someone or a cause worthy of you... the way I have never been. I haven't..." He lifts his gaze to her again, desperately searching for a way to properly say what needs to be said. "I never have deserved what you gave me... and I don't know how to make it right. Or if it can be."

Maybe it was the coward's way, another cowardly choice to add to all the others, but the idea of dying for his crimes was the only way he could see. He couldn't let another die in his place like so many others previously. This doesn't feel right, nothing does. But maybe it's no longer his choice. Maybe... that's the point, the price he has to pay.

"You can stop talking like that for a start!" Ginevra snaps. Loudly. It's not a shout, but it's the closest she's come to for years outside battle or making speeches. There's anger and frustration in her voice, the faintest crackle of lightning around her fingertips, and-

And then she flinches back, away from herself. Away from her emotions. Except she can't. It's been too long outside the Circle, too long away from the fear of Tranquillity, and she's been pushed and pushed too much. Even in the prison, seeing him in that cell full of self-loathing, she didn't shout, didn't cry. She'd been upset, of course, and then as soon as she turned away she swallowed it down to answer Cullen with an even voice and a calm face. Too many have died, she's lost too many to death and despair and madness, and she can't stand here and listen to him talk like this when she so nearly lost. When it's only because she knows how to dance politics that she rescued him. She rescued him. He's not dying under her hands like Minaeve, he's not on fire and screaming like countless others (like Lydia, like Willam, like all of them she was too late to save), he's not ripped apart by a mob or a demon, she saved him and he's here, saying he wanted her to move on.

It's too much.

Ginevra wraps her arms around herself, then moves again to roughly press a hand to her eyes.

"I love you," she whispers, voice thickening with tears. "I could have, if you'd just... I." She doesn't know what she's saying, there's too much to say. "You must think me so foolish, if you hold yourself so low."

Her strong reaction is something of a surprise. Maybe it shouldn't be, maybe he should have expected it, but it is all the same. His eyebrows rise and he notes the crackle around her hands, also that she pushes it back, as he would have suspected before this. Her control, even now, is admirable. Another reason why he always trusted her.

But this... this is different and he knows he's overstepped somehow. Maybe he does think too low of himself. Maybe he shouldn't. But if he shouldn't, then what should he think? He's a murderer and a liar. She shouldn't love him at all. Yet she does anyway, despite what he's done. His head tilts downward, gaze lowering to the floor as his fingers turn over themselves and he tries to think of how best to respond. It isn't until her last words that his head shoots back up and shakes firmly, a frown creasing his face.

"I have never thought you foolish," he says and his voice is as firm as his headshake. "Only myself. I--" I should never have gotten you involved in this, is what he wants to say, but given her outburst, he refrains. "I'm sorry, Inquisitor. I'm sorry for the order I gave, for lying, for being a murderer, for what I did to my men. And I'm sorry for hurting you. It's unforgivable. I don't expect you to ever forgive me. I'm not sure I can forgive myself."

At least he's trying to be honest now, to show her that this is who he really is. If they have a chance of starting over, she needs to know him, really know him, as Thom Rainier and not Blackwall.

She's always been taught control. As the youngest child of a proud Marsher noble house to a Circle apprentice and then mage, control, control, control has been as much a cornerstone of her life as her belief in Andraste and the Maker. Maybe more so, as it's bound in that belief and worship. Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him; the same with emotions, deportment.

Ginevra sucks in a deep breath, bowing her head. She wants this - no, not this argument, not these emotions, but him and them. She said so, in front of her court, and she believes it, but if they are to make this work they need to talk and she needs to... to... to do something.

So, she sits. Carefully, gracefully, too many years of deportment lessons for her to fling herself anywhere when she's this upset, perching herself on a fur-covered bale of hay. She gets her breathing even as she takes off her gloves and puts them beside her. The mountain air is cool on her bare hands, but it's a reminder to herself of why she's here and which face she's presenting.

"I'm not here as the Inquisitor," she says finally. "As Inquisitor Trevelyan, I made my judgement and I stand by it. You are to atone, as you have done. Here, now? I'm here as Ginny."

And what does she want as Ginny? The woman, not the Herald or the Inquisitor or the in-progress-please-Maker-let-her-succeed Saviour of Thedas?

Him. Him, for real and forever.

"When, when you were in the prison, Cullen and I talked. He didn't understand why you'd come forward, why after everything you'd offer yourself up. And I said, because you wanted to change. You wanted to be a good man, put things right. After all, you could have just let Mornay die.

Am I right? Thom?"

Blackwall doesn't sit until Ginny does, thinking that it's better for him to follow her lead rather than risk angering her further. Maybe he does idealize her to some degree, but he also truly loves her. She means everything to him, as Ginevra Trevelyan, not just the symbol of the Inquisition. And so he slowly lowers himself to one of the nearby hay bales, feeling far too bulky next to her gracefulness.

The reason he had called her by her title was because he wasn't sure he was allowed to call her by her nickname anymore. Somehow that felt almost too personal for her wish that they start over.

"You are right," he admits finally, holding back the tone that would say she could never be wrong. "I was a coward to hide before, to think that I could atone behind the name of another while my men suffered for what I had done. Too many others had died in my place. I couldn't let one more fall to that."

He pauses, leaning over to rest his forearms across his knees. His thoughts tumble over each other and for a time he thinks he might not be able to continue. But he needs to, needs to tell her the truth, even if it isn't pleasant.

"If I had a hope of atoning for even a part of what I have done, I had to start clean. I had to be honest with myself... and with the world. I could no longer live knowing that someone else had died in my place."

Names are awkward, she's finding. Inquisitor Trevelyan, Lady Trevelyan (although, really, her status as a noble has been ambiguous for years due to being in the Cirlce), Enchanter Treveylan, Ginevra. Ginny. Love, as he calls her, sometimes. Called. Are you all right, love?

(She isn't now, no.)

She's quiet as she listens, quiet and trying to be calm. It helps, in a way, that his confession and admission demand her attention. Something to focus on other than her swirling emotions, and maybe something akin to calm will let her tell the truth in something more useful than a ragged yell.

"The more I got to know you," Ginevra begins, carefully, "the more I thought you were atoning for something. Something terrible, I was sure. You're too pragmatic for it to be a little sin. So I thought, you joined the Wardens, or were recruited, and devoted yourself to doing better."

She swallows.

"So, in... In many ways, all this, all the background and motivations, it's not a shock, to me."

To hear that it isn’t a shock to Ginny is a shock all its own to Blackwall. He can’t say why, exactly, other than the idea of being surprised that she had guessed it so easily and still hasn’t pushed him away. At least not fully. He had expected her to reject him. Instead, the offer to start over, to talk things through, surprises him.

It all nearly startles him.

“You were right,” he admits softly, bowing his head for a moment. “But if it isn’t a shock...” He can’t ask her why she’s treating him differently. He deserves it, deserves to be looked at differently. Betraying her trust hadn’t done him any favors. He wonders something she has likely wondered herself. Where do they go now?

“I don’t know where to go from here, what to do or say. You’ve asked that we start over. I can respect that.” He could honestly respect it if she wanted nothing to do with him ever again, but given her other reactions to his words along those lines, he decides that it’s best not to continue that thought. “I leave it in your hands.”

Their relationship, he means, as well as whatever else she might want to know, whatever else she might have to say to him. He’s prepared for the worst. There’s nothing she could say to him that would be worse than the self-hatred he already bears.

But if it isn't a shock...

She can fill in the gaps easily enough, what he is asking. What she isn't sure is how to articulate the why of her hesitancy, where the depth of her panic and hurt is coming from. She isn't sure if she can even word it herself, not properly. Not more elegantly than, so many have died or you scared me.

Maybe that's all she can say.

"I said that, that we have to start over again, because... I have to trust you, again. That you won't abandon me, that you won't. That if you die, it'll be at my side. It won't be, it won't." Ginevra's breath catches; she forces her breathing to steady enough to continue. "That it won't be somewhere where I can't help you.

I've had too many die, darling. Too many people, since all of this began with the Circles. And I couldn't help them. I wasn't, wasn't there or I wasn't fast enough. If Leliana's people hadn't worked out where you might have gone, you'd be-

I'd have lost you."

Maker dammit, she's crying. She's been trying not to, trying not to be manipulative, but she can't help it. The best she can do is keep her head ducked so he can't see.

"And you didn't tell me any of this, earlier. That. That's what we have to fix, I think."

Her explanation clarifies so much for him. Blackwall – no, Thom – feels it slam into him like a wave, like the force of that avalanche, the one that buried Haven. It’s her tone of voice that has him looking over at her, his eyes crinkled with sorrow and regret. But it’s the way she ducks her head, the way she won’t look at him, that has him standing again.

He shouldn’t and he knows it, but he can’t help himself. He has never been able to see her suffer and to know that it was his hand that caused this wound nearly guts him. How could he have been so stupid in so many monumental ways?

“I didn’t think I could bear it... that night we almost lost you at Haven,” he says quietly. Hesitantly, just as worriedly as the steps he takes to her side. It isn’t the same as this situation and his voice says that, too. But he knows loss, knows the fear of it, even if they had not been romantically involved then, even if he had still been trying to push her away. She worried him that night, but he broke her heart.

Leaving some space between them, he lowers himself to the hay bale she’s sitting on, trying to be that comforting presence he always has been. He leans his weight on his arms, resting them across his knees as he contemplates how best to reassure her. Now that she has spent all this time and energy on him, he has no intentions of losing her or taking her love for granted. She needs to know that he is taking what she says seriously. Perhaps too seriously.

“I should have told you,” he says finally. “I don’t have any other great secrets, but if I did... now would be the time I would tell you. I’m sorry for hurting you, for being such a coward for so long. I vow to do better this time.”

And perhaps now he can find that redemption he has always sought.

She'd seen the effect the night Haven had had on him. Had seen in the camp once she'd recovered enough to walk around, look at her people - her people, because they suddenly were. Had seen it, heard it, in his controlled fury once they reached Skyhold. What he wanted to do to make sure her enemies couldn't come after her again. He'd time, both times, to get back under control. His reaction when he realised that she was trapped between a dragon and a monster and freedom, when the mountain fell on her, that's all something she's never wanted to think about. Not until he left her and she'd wondered how he could have done this to her, when he'd lived through that.

Her throat is too full of tears to say anything, though, and maybe that's for the best. This conversation is hard enough, and what would it add? He knows, now, what his actions made her feel. That's what she wanted, him to understand.

He sits down on her bale, and the space between them feels like a consideration instead of a gulf. It's better. It's progress. It's something like normal, and Ginevra shuffles across so she tuck her hand around his elbow and her rest her head against his upper arm. There. That... That feels better.

"Thank you," she says softly.

The simple answer was that she had inspired him. To be a better man, less angry all the time, less angry at himself. To be a person she could be proud of, not one chasing the shadows and living a lie he was forever afraid of coming to light. He had been so afraid for her, so upset that any enemy could be that terrible, all while living a life that was just as terrible in its own right.

Finally coming clean about it, rescuing someone who should not have had to face the executioner's axe for what he had been ordered to do, had been like a weight lifting in some way. Though it had also added other ones. This was his life. This is his life. No matter what else happens, he had needed to come clean one day and he feels better for having done so.

Maybe he could have done it all better but the way he had done it had seemed right at the time and nothing will change it now.

He hadn't expected for her to tuck herself up against him. Her head rests against his arm and it takes everything in him not to shift his arm around her. Instead, he lets her settle as she likes, his free hand coming to rest against the one of hers that's tucked around his elbow. If she's content to let him.

"I should be thanking you," he points out softly, "for coming to find me... For never giving up on me."

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We could make the world better. It's just easier to shut our eyes.

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