The shape of his own fragmented past was never quite the same, but he knows, deeply, what it’s like to hold up an empty frame and only understand that something should’ve been there. The horrible heaviness of holding nothing in one’s palms. How wretched a thing.
...and how unfair that it’s stolen from them both.
Again.]
Half a year ago, now. Over it, in fact.
You and I were—
[No, he doesn’t say friends. He doesn’t say it because it’d make things worse. Because it’d be a knife to his own ribs as much as Fenris’, too. What good does that do him?
Any of them?
He lifts his cup, sipping from it for a single, weighty beat.]
I don’t know. Acquaintances, I suppose.
We played cards together. Swapped gossip. [Mostly about Riftwatch, but Kirkwall is ever Kirkwall.] Hunted when the mood struck— which it often did.
[A thin smile, there. The quickest flash of levity.
And then it’s gone.]
I knew you were a former slave— like myself— though admittedly we never much discussed more of it than that on either side. So I can’t go regurgitating a wellspring of facts to put your mind at ease, and I can’t tell you that you knew me all that well, either, when it really comes down to it.
[Maybe that’s a comfort. He doesn’t know.]
You mentioned your enemies have grown more aggressive these last few months. So that probably means you’ve only lost—
Well. It means whatever happened to you must’ve skimmed from the top, unless....
[Unless, and it’s a terribly heavy word in that single second before he asks:]
no subject
The shape of his own fragmented past was never quite the same, but he knows, deeply, what it’s like to hold up an empty frame and only understand that something should’ve been there. The horrible heaviness of holding nothing in one’s palms. How wretched a thing.
...and how unfair that it’s stolen from them both.
Again.]
Half a year ago, now. Over it, in fact.
You and I were—
[No, he doesn’t say friends. He doesn’t say it because it’d make things worse. Because it’d be a knife to his own ribs as much as Fenris’, too. What good does that do him?
Any of them?
He lifts his cup, sipping from it for a single, weighty beat.]
I don’t know. Acquaintances, I suppose.
We played cards together. Swapped gossip. [Mostly about Riftwatch, but Kirkwall is ever Kirkwall.] Hunted when the mood struck— which it often did.
[A thin smile, there. The quickest flash of levity.
And then it’s gone.]
I knew you were a former slave— like myself— though admittedly we never much discussed more of it than that on either side. So I can’t go regurgitating a wellspring of facts to put your mind at ease, and I can’t tell you that you knew me all that well, either, when it really comes down to it.
[Maybe that’s a comfort. He doesn’t know.]
You mentioned your enemies have grown more aggressive these last few months. So that probably means you’ve only lost—
Well. It means whatever happened to you must’ve skimmed from the top, unless....
[Unless, and it’s a terribly heavy word in that single second before he asks:]
Do you remember this city? At all, I mean.