Pel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mythalenaste) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
elfhame2016-08-13 07:59 pm
mythalenaste) wrote in elfhame2016-08-13 07:59 pm
Different PSL with byblow
Skyhold hasn't been this empty-feeling in a while. There are still caravans, wagons of people packing up to retire now that Corypheus is dead. Pel watches more people leave every day and wonders how this moment came before she knew what to do about it.
She sits in the courtyard for a rare moment of rest. Sina is sprinting across the grass with mud in her hair and a determined look she usually reserves for Lucci. So long as she stays within sight, Pel doesn't care very much. Sylaise help her, she never thought she would reach a day when sitting and doing nothing would be a treat. She rests with her elbows on her knees and her fingers threaded together, watching the child-monster as she runs.
Leliana has promised her a job if she stays. But with no leader, no Inquisitor, the support for the Inquisition is already beginning to fray. Pel's promised job may not exist in a year, unless leadership changes. But this is Sina's home. Skyhold is her playground and nursery both. And Pel has no clan, no place to take her except the open road. That's no life for a child, wandering the wild with no one but her mother. Sina needs friends and playmates and honorary aunts and uncles. She needs a clan, and the Inquisition is her clan.
The tot's trajectory becomes clear, and a moment later she arrives. Alistair is sitting across the courtyard working on something or another and her elbows land on his knees. She babbles something hurriedly and excitedly, and there is absolutely no telling what it is, but she waits a moment for his reply. Pel smiles.
She sits in the courtyard for a rare moment of rest. Sina is sprinting across the grass with mud in her hair and a determined look she usually reserves for Lucci. So long as she stays within sight, Pel doesn't care very much. Sylaise help her, she never thought she would reach a day when sitting and doing nothing would be a treat. She rests with her elbows on her knees and her fingers threaded together, watching the child-monster as she runs.
Leliana has promised her a job if she stays. But with no leader, no Inquisitor, the support for the Inquisition is already beginning to fray. Pel's promised job may not exist in a year, unless leadership changes. But this is Sina's home. Skyhold is her playground and nursery both. And Pel has no clan, no place to take her except the open road. That's no life for a child, wandering the wild with no one but her mother. Sina needs friends and playmates and honorary aunts and uncles. She needs a clan, and the Inquisition is her clan.
The tot's trajectory becomes clear, and a moment later she arrives. Alistair is sitting across the courtyard working on something or another and her elbows land on his knees. She babbles something hurriedly and excitedly, and there is absolutely no telling what it is, but she waits a moment for his reply. Pel smiles.
no subject
The something or another that Alistair had been working on -- a letter, specifically, to the newly-repopulated Vigil's Keep, Warden-Commander Howe, ridiculous but fitting -- isn't put aside, quite. There's no telling if this is only a brief stop on a longer journey that Nida has planned and she won't scurry away the moment he sets his things on the bench. But he does put the pen down flat on top of the paper, both held on his lap with one hand, and hunch forward to give her his full attention.
"That's something else," he says, conversational, and glances over the top of her head until he locates Pel -- just making sure she's here instead of frantically looking for her baby elsewhere -- and smiles, mostly with his eyes.
no subject
"LUCCI!" she yells, coming upon the lad and tackle-hugging him.
Pel, meanwhile, stands up and walks toward Alistair, trying to keep at an angle where she can see the girl. Her body has changed since having Sina--wider in the hips, thicker in the waist, bigger in the feet, all-over musculature developed and toned--but she moves with the same poise and confidence as always, with the step of one accustomed to wearing a sword at their hip. She sits beside Alistair and leans against his warm bulk, familiar and comforting. Something she has done for years, though lately it has been an excuse to be close to him, touch him, smell him, feel his heartbeat.
"She's going to miss everyone so much," she says quietly. And Sina is not the only one. Pel doesn't know if she can take all these goodbyes. One goodbye in particular is going to break her heart.