Post #2662927 in The Canticle of Fate, a roleplay on RPG

Asala drew the blanket over Roderick's face as she sighed. It was inevitable, they had both known it, and the best she could do was see to it that he passed in peace, free from pain and agony that would come from his wound. He'd seem peaceful in his last hours, and Asala could still feel the weight of his hand in hers during his last moments. She stoppered the vial in her hand and replaced it in her pack before she stood in the wagon and hopped out.

With her weight back on her feet, the exhaustion she felt struck her hard. She took a moment to run a clammy hand down her face before she began walking with the caravan once more. Deep, dark bags had formed under her dulled gold eyes. She done everything she could to help ease the pain of the wounded soldiers, along with Donovan, Milly, and some of the other mages. She'd rarely given herself time to think since they began their trek, much less time to sleep and rest.

She looked ahead of the line of men and women, trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of Estella or any of the others leading them, but she could not. The only things she could see were the people drawing further and further ahead of her as she realized her own pace was much slower than the rest. It'd been two or three days since they'd begun following Estella, Asala didn't know which. The days blurred together as she worked herself to the bone to try and not think too hard about what had happened.

Inevitably, her mind began to wander back to those dark spaces. She was afraid to be alone with her thoughts. She quickened her pace and searched for something she could help with, something she could do so that she wouldn't have to think, because she was afraid that once she began, she wouldn't stop.

“You look terrible.” The voice came from beside her, and considerably above, for the speaker was mounted. It was Cyrus, who wore a wry smile, a knowing one, perhaps because he looked about as tired as she did, thick circles under his eyes evidence that he’d not slept particularly well recently, either, though his gaze was still sharp and bright, almost unnaturally so in its contrast with the purplish-black rings lining the bottom of his sockets. He yet carried himself with grace, however, and hopped off the still-moving horse with the ease of someone who’d been riding most of his life.

He shifted the reins over the creature’s head, so that he was holding them in one hand. “Go on then. Rest a while. I’ll lead her, so you don’t have to worry about steering.” He drew the horse to a stop and looked at Asala with clear expectation.

She was a moment away from refusing, but she stopped herself. She glanced at the procession continuing to walk on behind her, and the lack of a clear destination ahead of them. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it soon after. Asala was too tired to refuse, so with an empty smile she nodded and mounted the horse slowly. A sudden memory came to her, back in the Hinterlands where Khari had helped her ride the horse there. She found herself wondering where Khari was now before she stopped herself, shaking her head and looking back down to Cyrus.

"Roderick," she managed, her voice scratchy and hoarse. "He... did not make it," she said, allowing a lingering stare to settle on the cart in which his body rode.

“He was in a bad way to begin with.” Cyrus pronounced the words slowly, as if he had to think carefully about which ones to use. Indeed, he looked slightly uncomfortable when he glanced over his shoulder to check that she was settled into the saddle. Once he saw that she was, he started forward again, the mare beneath her starting forward at a steady walk that put them back at speed with the rest of the procession. “I’ve great confidence that you did everything you could for him.”

Asala shook her head. "I could only make it as painless as possible."

He dropped back slightly, so that he was walking nearer the horse’s shoulder than her head, a hand on the base of her neck apparently quite sufficient to guide her where he wanted her to go. “You know, most cultures in Thedas believe that when someone dies, they simply pass beyond the Veil. They don’t cease to exist; they merely begin existing somewhere else.” He still spoke slowly, perhaps even awkwardly; it was hard to tell for sure. He seemed very interested in the landscape all of a sudden, anyway.

Asala's head slowly fell down until she only saw the horse below her. She was uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken and her body language conveyed such. "May-maybe..." was the only thing she said in response before falling silent. She instead occupied her attention by scratching the horse's neck. "Do... you, uh... know where we are going?" she asked quietly, twirling some of the horse's mane between her fingers.

“I don’t know what it’s called.” He shrugged slightly, as though it was of little consequence. “But apparently there’s somewhere in these mountains suitable for a base of operations, and we’re going there.” He lifted his head slightly to glance up the column of people marching in front of them. They were going uphill, so one could make out Estella, Vesryn, and several of the others nearer the front. “The dreams around here are very old; I can only expect that this place will be the same.” They started up the slope, Cyrus’s feet steady over the ground, as were the horse’s, though several of those nearest them appeared to be struggling a little more with it, the snow loose enough in some places to make forward progress difficult.

Asala nodded, but otherwise said nothing. Instead, her eyes were drawn to those who struggled with the terrain near them. She frowned and slowly shook her head, "I hope it is near." she murmurred. She grew quiet again, and for a time remained that way, focusing on the horse's mane between her fingertips. Soon, she began to braid it to keep her hands busy if nothing else. Eventually, that too became mechanical. She said, and tilted her head to the side so as to get a better look at Cyrus.

"These dreams... Tell me about them. What are they like?" she asked, genuinely curious. She knew he possessed a unique type of magic and that it dealt with dreams, but she did not fully understand it as she never ventured to ask the details.

He smiled, and it was recognizable as one of the more genuine ones in his repertoire, so to speak, though it was understated at this point, perhaps due to the situation they were in. “Everything. They’re like everything. And nothing. Which is incredibly uninformative, I know.” He shook his head, almost fondly. “What exactly they depict depends on the location. Different parts of the physical world are closer to different parts of the Fade, because the histories are different. Often, I can dream of what transpired in the past at a location, though the accounts are rarely the whole story. Sometimes, I’ll gain one perspective on one night and the opposite on another.”

He turned, slightly, to look up at her. “The downside is that sometimes, my sleep is no more restful than my waking hours.” His smile turned subtle, then, a little rueful. “Here, I dream of a war. An ancient war, waged long ago between beings whose lives stretched into eons.” He scoffed. “And none of them let me forget it, I can tell you that much.”

His explanation did little to clear it up for her, but that was fine. She listened intently regardless, still intrigued by what he said. "A war..." she repeated, looking all around them. It must have been long ago, because the land did not bare the scars of an ancient war. "Are all of your dreams like that?" she began. "Or are some of them... happy?" she asked with a tiny smile. A war, ancient or not, was not something she considered happy, or even particularly glorious, and certainly not now considering their current circumstances.

“History is rarely made in happy moments.” His tone was neutral, not conveying one way or another his feelings about the truism, but then he cut a glance in her direction, clearly amused. “But… yes. Sometimes I see lighter things. Soldiers returning home from war, meeting their families and their lovers after a long separation. Children exploring forgotten forest groves, coaxing songs from the trees. Architects building grand castles and ancient mages learning their trade. Sometimes very clumsily.”

His smile briefly flashed white teeth. “The glorious, the simple, the happy or the tragic—everything.” He shrugged. “What do you dream of?” The tone of his voice gave away that he was asking a different question than she had been, and was well aware of it.

She frowned, not expecting the question to be flipped on her like that. She glanced to the procession of people once more before her gaze fell back to Cyrus, a weak smile forming at her lips. "Happy moments," she answered. Though history was rarely made with happy moments, they made it worth living, and though they were hard to find in their current situation, she had hope they could find a few when they reached where they were headed.

“Then I envy you, sometimes.” There was no malice in the words; they seemed more contemplative than anything, but clearly he had no intentions to say anything further on the subject, and they crested the hill they’d been climbing, giving them a good view of the terrain that lay ahead. Hill was a bit of an understatement, really—they were in the upper reaches of the mountains now, and they’d made trekked about halfway up one of the smaller ones, meaning that several valleys lay spread before them, many more mountains still ahead, though how many of those they’d need to climb so directly was impossible to say.

The sunlight was pale, up here, and not especially warm, but it was bright off the snow, and Cyrus squinted against it. There weren’t many hours left before it dropped behind another mountain, and for those hours, they’d be marching still.

Gradually, a low humming reached their ears from further up the column, and Cyrus paused momentarily in his stride, cocking his head to the side as though to decide what the sound was, but then he huffed softly through his nose and continued forwards.

Asala's brow rose as she too heard the hum. It started out slow and quiet, like a low rumble, but eventually a melody was able to be picked out. To their side, a few of the soldiers picked up on the melody and began to hum too. Soon the harmony grew louder as it swelled passed them and continued along down the line. She glanced at Cyrus for a moment, rather confused with what was happening. In the distance, the humming gave away to voices, but she could not make out the words. It wasn't until a deep baritone voice behind them began to sing did she begin to understand the lyrics. A glance behind her revealed Donovan, standing in the cart he was in, his eyes closed as he sang. Asala smiled and she looked back down to Cyrus.

Slowly, more voices around them joined in with the song, which was a slow thing, swirling and deep in timbre, at the core of it. It wasn’t hard to recognize as a hymn, though it was no part of the Chant strictly speaking, rather being the kind of thing passed by travelers and those in trying situations to one another. A commoner’s song, rather than a noble’s epic, simple and understated. Doubtless that was the reason so many of those present knew it, for that was exactly the type of folk that populated the Inquisition.

Cyrus did not appear to be familiar, or perhaps he was and simply elected not to join in; his expression alone didn’t give away which, and he did not choose to comment. The verse swelled into the chorus around them, clearly a much better-known portion of the song.

The night is long, and the path is dark.
Look to the sky: for one day soon
The dawn will come.

It wasn’t hard to understand why whoever had chosen the song had done so, given the words that composed it, and it had perceptible effect on those nearby. They didn’t move much faster, given the tempo, but they stood a little straighter, raised their heads a bit, and set their eyes forward instead of down, the sense of togetherness clearly bolstering their flagging reserves. Whether it had been a strategic choice or a sentimental one, it had achieved its end.

“Happy moments, was it?” Cyrus murmured the words, evidently more to himself than her, and shook his head slightly.

"Happy moments," Asala agreed, her exhaustion feeling like a faint memory.

Snippet #2662927

located in Thedas, a part of The Canticle of Fate, one of the many universes on RPG.

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