āSir.ā
Reedās voice broke Leonās reverie, and he shook his head, trying to clear his vision. His headache was splitting, but he hadnāt realized he was simply staring off into space until his aide had addressed him. The most alarming thing was that he hadnāt even realized the newly-promoted lieutenant had even entered the room in the first place.
Leonās new office was on the wall-level of one of the towers. The whole thing was his space, actually, which he found rather excessive. He didnāt need an entire tower to himself, but at least it was one of the smaller ones. His quarters were above, accessible by ladder, and below lay the armory, so perhaps it was inaccurate to say that the whole thing was reserved for his use. Even soā¦ but he was losing track of his thoughts again, and forced himself to snap out of it, regarding Reed with his usual mild gaze.
Correctly taking this as cue to continue, he did. āYou asked me to tell you when Miss Asala left her quarters, or if she stopped eating. Sheās gone back to work, sir, in the infirmary.ā His delivery was neutral, but he sounded perhaps a little relieved. Leon could not blame himāmany people had taken the losses at Haven hard, but none quite so much so as Asala, which was expected, considering whom she had lost. With a short sigh, Leon nodded to Reed and stood.
āThank you, Lieutenant. I should go check on her.ā Mostly, he felt he needed to apologize. With more distance from the events and considerable thought, heād decided that Estellaās approach was probably better than his own, considering the circumstancesāhe should have let her hope a little longer that Meraad lived. Perhaps the grief would have been less shattering if it crept in over time, handled bit by bit, rather than delivered like a hammerblow. Just because he would prefer the single devastating hit to the slow, unbearable loss of hope didnāt mean everyone would. It didnāt seem like Asala had.
Had he really forgotten, what it was like to be anything but this? A soldier, accustomed if not immune to death, even the death of close friends and comrades? But then, he had known this reality even before he was properly a soldier. It was one of the first things of significance that he could remember learning.
āSir?ā That was Reed again, and Leon remembered that heād meant to go, but hadnāt yet moved. āAre youā¦?ā
āIām fine, Lieutenant. I appreciate the concern.ā Leon smiled benignly, turning aside further inquiry with only the application of that composed expression and a few words. That had taken many years to perfect, but heād managed in the end. He answered Reedās salute with a nod, and exited his office onto the battlements, not really minding the mountain wind that stirred his heavy cloak. Summer would be upon them soon, and perhaps Skyhold would at last be subject to milder weather than it had yet been. The Conclave had exploded in the dead of winterāit was hard to believe it had been months ago, now, and yet in other respects, he didnāt understand how it hadnāt been years.
The next tower over was the one the mages occupied, and the room at the bottom floor was the infirmary, with a lounge above and many sets of quarters further up. He entered at the lounge level, but he was a common-enough sight that he didnāt startle them with his simple presence anymore, though he knew that no few of them were still nervous in his presence. He wasnāt sure if it was the fact that he was a Seeker, the Commander, or simply a very large person. Perhaps it was some combination of the three. He tried not to give them any more reasons to be wary of him, anyway, and took the stairs down as quickly as was polite, putting him in the infirmary.
And there she was, immediately recognizable even among the many people moving about, in large part for being, as he was, head and shoulders taller than a great number of people. Heād admit the horns were also distinctive, however. Leon made his way over to her workstation, stepping deliberately such that his approach would be noticed. Though it seemed that she still didn't, so focused was she on her work.
āYou know,ā he said gently, āthereās quite a large garden courtyard here in Skyhold. I think weāll be able to keep you in much better supply than before.ā He leaned himself against the wall a polite distance from her work station, folding his hands behind him.
A number of jars sat open on her station, various herbs and medical reagents gathered in small piles on top of the table. Asala was currently in the midst of separating the various supplies into their corresponding labeled jar. On the wall in front of her sat a long shelf that already held a number of the labeled jars, though some spots were left empty, no doubt the ones that already lay on her table. They had recieved a shipment of supplies recently, and she seemed to have set to neatly organizing them. Donovan stood on her other side, doing the same except for bandages and splints. However, at the Commander's arrival, he nodded a greeting and took his leave, apparently deciding to let them have a moment to themselves.
Grief hadn't changed her skittish nature, as it turned out. Asala twitched, clearly caught by surprise by his words, and turned to see him. She turned to him with saucerlike eyes, a jar labeled Embrium in her hands, filled to the brim with the crimson leaves of the plant. She quickly took a glance down at the jar before turning back to the table to set it back down. "Uh..." she said, though she didn't formulate any actual words. Instead, she simply nodded and smiled. Her smile, Leon noted, was more melancholy than it was happy.
He wasnāt that surprised by the fact, though he did feel a twinge of sympathy. He suddenly wasnāt sure whether he should even bring it up; probably the reminder would be less welcome than just about anything else he could say, but he didnāt think he could simply not mention it, either. Leon hadnāt ever really thought of himself as a person lacking social graces. Certainly, he wasnāt the fluid speaker Marceline was, and he didnāt have the easy charm of Vesryn or the effortless wit of Cyrus, but heād never been particularly awkward, either.
This, thoughā¦ this made him feel awkward.
āI wanted to say Iām sorry,ā he ventured at last. If she reacted badly, he supposed he could just leave and never mention it again, or something. He struggled with the next words, because he really didnāt want to hurt her, and by comparison to most of the people he knew, she was quite fragile indeed. āThe last time I spoke to youā¦ I was more callous than I should have been. Itā¦ I forgot what it was like, the first time I lost someone I loved. It took me a little while to remember how different it was from any loss since.ā He wasnāt sure how heād managed to miss that detailāperhaps it was only the sheer amount of time that had elapsed, or perhaps it was something a little worse.
Asala's feet shuffled beneath her and she refused to meet Leon's eyes, looking instead down and away. She was very definitely uncomfortable with broaching the subject, but by the lack of an immediate reply, she also didn't know how to respond. It wasn't until a few moments later that she picked up a jar that read aloe, and began to inspect it that she finally said something. "It is... fine," she said with a rather timid tone. "You... did what you felt you had to," continued, turning the jar over in her hands. She seemed tired.
āAnd sometimes,ā he replied, āI am wrong.ā
But he decided to leave it at that. Grief was different for everyone, and if she would rather avoid the topic entirely, that was her business, and none of his unless she chose to share. āIs there anything I can do to help with these?ā He nodded to the jars she was surrounded by, picking up on her apparent fatigue but guessing she wouldnāt consent to simply stop working. Perhaps another pair of hands would lighten the burden a bit.
"Um..." She finally took her eyes off of the jar and to the table she had been working at moments ago. She scanned and paused, seemingly working out the best way they could use him. When she turned back to him, her lips held a weak smile. "Uh... If you can tell the difference between the herbs, I could... use the help sorting them," Asala said, gesturing to the herbs that were laid out on her table. She moved with much less of a frantic pace now, it seemed, far different than when she was drowning herself in her work only weeks ago.
āOf course.ā That much, he could do quite easily. Leon moved around the workstation, so as to take up a spot actually at it instead of next to it, which was slightly awkward considering his size and the fact that he was sharing it, but heād long learned by this point to be fluid enough and light enough on his feet that the problems that came of the bulk of his frame were minimized. Of course, that only applied when he was paying attention, as he tended to demonstrate whenever he was not.
His gloved hands made quick work of sorting the various plants, though a few looked similar enough to each other that he had to identify them by smell, occasionally raising a sprig to his nose. Some of them had been picked at different points in the growth cycle as well, which actually made them suitable for radically different purposes, so he kept separate piles on those criteria as well.
Several minutes into their work, soft footfalls signaled the approach of someone new to the infirmary. Romulus seemed to carry himself differently now, taller, a little more easily, less withdrawn into himself. His clothes and cloak were cleaner than he'd typically kept them in Haven. Still, he looked a bit uncertain, particularly upon approaching the workstation that Asala and Leon worked at, and clearing his throat.
"I heard you were back at work," he said carefully, coming to a stop just beyond arm's reach of the workstation. It seemed word traveled quickly. "I wanted to check on you, make sure you're doing alright." He paused for a second, shifting his weight onto his other foot, clearly deciding whether or not to add something. In the end, it slipped out.
"I missed you. I'm sure Khari won't mind me saying that she could never do your job." Old, healing wounds aside, it was obvious from his tone that wasn't the only reason he'd missed her.
Asala turned and held Romulus in her gaze for a moment. She seemed unsure of something, before she averted her gaze elsewhere. She looked at his feet as she spoke. "I hope..." she managed before she hesitated again. Something else was on her mind and it wasn't difficult to figure out what it was. The last time Asala had seen Romulus it had been Haven, with Meraad leaving with them to try and buy them time to escape. Now he returned, and Meraad was nowhere to be found. The melancholy and sadness was clear on her face, but she did not try to escape from the situation.
"I hope that she was enough and that you... weren't injured too badly," she said with an apologetic smile, though her eyes still remained downward. "It was... not too difficult, I hope. Oh... uh, your... journey, I mean," she said, finally making herself look at him, though when she began to trip over her words again, her eyes fell.
"It was not easy," he admitted, "but I'm alive. And I learned a lot about myself." He surveyed her for a moment, running a hand through his hair uneasily.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Asala. I didn't know Meraad well, but his bravery was plain to see. He died bravely." He looked like he wanted to say more, but also like he wasn't sure what to add. Death was an unpleasant thing, and there were only so many ways to soften it.
She managed a small, though pained, smile onto her lips as she nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly, glancing up to meet his eyes once more. She wavered for a moment, and her eyes threatened to mist over. Surprisingly however, they did not and instead she took a deep breath which seemed to have strengthened her resolve. She nodded, and glanced at her work table before returning her look to Romulus.
"Is there, uh, anything I can--I can do? For you I mean? Now?" she inquired with a tilt of her head.
Romulus took the cue easily enough, and nodded, clapping his hands together once. "Yes, actually. Most of my tonics were lost in the attack, or used after it. I'd hoped to steal some supplies, if you have some you can spare." His eyes passed swiftly over the sorted piles and labeled jars.
"You... do not have to steal them," she said quizzically. Leon cleared his throat, suppressing a chuckle. "But yes. We have an abundant supply now," she said, gesturing to the labeled jars sitting on the shelves "Just let one of us know, so we can, uh... keep track of stock," she said, scratching beneath her horns. It seemed that keeping stock wasn't her idea, but someone else's. By the way that Donovan nodded in approval off away from them said that it was most likely his.
"Right," Romulus assented. "I'll... make a list of what I need to take, and get back to you."
"Thank you," Asala said with an appreciative nod. A quiet moment passed with Asala glancing at the door that led outside before she spoke. "If... you both will excuse me. I... am going to take a walk. Maybe I will... visit the garden," she said with a heavy smile to Leon. It was apparent that she needed time to herself think about some things, and soon she made her exit.
Donovan watched her leave, his expression as impassive as the tranquil that he worked with. He made his way over to where Leon and Romulus stood, staring at the door the whole while. Finally he turned to regard them both. "She will be fine," he stated plainly, "Asala is stronger than she lets on. All she needs is time."
Leon nodded simply. āOf course.ā He certainly didnāt expect a person to recover from the death of a family member in the space of a month and a half, especially considering it hadnāt really been confirmed for her until a week or so ago. At least she was doing things like taking breaks now.
With a nod to Donovan and a half-smile in Romulusās direction, he turned back to his work. Heād at least bundle and label all of these before returning to his office.
Reedās voice broke Leonās reverie, and he shook his head, trying to clear his vision. His headache was splitting, but he hadnāt realized he was simply staring off into space until his aide had addressed him. The most alarming thing was that he hadnāt even realized the newly-promoted lieutenant had even entered the room in the first place.
Leonās new office was on the wall-level of one of the towers. The whole thing was his space, actually, which he found rather excessive. He didnāt need an entire tower to himself, but at least it was one of the smaller ones. His quarters were above, accessible by ladder, and below lay the armory, so perhaps it was inaccurate to say that the whole thing was reserved for his use. Even soā¦ but he was losing track of his thoughts again, and forced himself to snap out of it, regarding Reed with his usual mild gaze.
Correctly taking this as cue to continue, he did. āYou asked me to tell you when Miss Asala left her quarters, or if she stopped eating. Sheās gone back to work, sir, in the infirmary.ā His delivery was neutral, but he sounded perhaps a little relieved. Leon could not blame himāmany people had taken the losses at Haven hard, but none quite so much so as Asala, which was expected, considering whom she had lost. With a short sigh, Leon nodded to Reed and stood.
āThank you, Lieutenant. I should go check on her.ā Mostly, he felt he needed to apologize. With more distance from the events and considerable thought, heād decided that Estellaās approach was probably better than his own, considering the circumstancesāhe should have let her hope a little longer that Meraad lived. Perhaps the grief would have been less shattering if it crept in over time, handled bit by bit, rather than delivered like a hammerblow. Just because he would prefer the single devastating hit to the slow, unbearable loss of hope didnāt mean everyone would. It didnāt seem like Asala had.
Had he really forgotten, what it was like to be anything but this? A soldier, accustomed if not immune to death, even the death of close friends and comrades? But then, he had known this reality even before he was properly a soldier. It was one of the first things of significance that he could remember learning.
āSir?ā That was Reed again, and Leon remembered that heād meant to go, but hadnāt yet moved. āAre youā¦?ā
āIām fine, Lieutenant. I appreciate the concern.ā Leon smiled benignly, turning aside further inquiry with only the application of that composed expression and a few words. That had taken many years to perfect, but heād managed in the end. He answered Reedās salute with a nod, and exited his office onto the battlements, not really minding the mountain wind that stirred his heavy cloak. Summer would be upon them soon, and perhaps Skyhold would at last be subject to milder weather than it had yet been. The Conclave had exploded in the dead of winterāit was hard to believe it had been months ago, now, and yet in other respects, he didnāt understand how it hadnāt been years.
The next tower over was the one the mages occupied, and the room at the bottom floor was the infirmary, with a lounge above and many sets of quarters further up. He entered at the lounge level, but he was a common-enough sight that he didnāt startle them with his simple presence anymore, though he knew that no few of them were still nervous in his presence. He wasnāt sure if it was the fact that he was a Seeker, the Commander, or simply a very large person. Perhaps it was some combination of the three. He tried not to give them any more reasons to be wary of him, anyway, and took the stairs down as quickly as was polite, putting him in the infirmary.
And there she was, immediately recognizable even among the many people moving about, in large part for being, as he was, head and shoulders taller than a great number of people. Heād admit the horns were also distinctive, however. Leon made his way over to her workstation, stepping deliberately such that his approach would be noticed. Though it seemed that she still didn't, so focused was she on her work.
āYou know,ā he said gently, āthereās quite a large garden courtyard here in Skyhold. I think weāll be able to keep you in much better supply than before.ā He leaned himself against the wall a polite distance from her work station, folding his hands behind him.
A number of jars sat open on her station, various herbs and medical reagents gathered in small piles on top of the table. Asala was currently in the midst of separating the various supplies into their corresponding labeled jar. On the wall in front of her sat a long shelf that already held a number of the labeled jars, though some spots were left empty, no doubt the ones that already lay on her table. They had recieved a shipment of supplies recently, and she seemed to have set to neatly organizing them. Donovan stood on her other side, doing the same except for bandages and splints. However, at the Commander's arrival, he nodded a greeting and took his leave, apparently deciding to let them have a moment to themselves.
Grief hadn't changed her skittish nature, as it turned out. Asala twitched, clearly caught by surprise by his words, and turned to see him. She turned to him with saucerlike eyes, a jar labeled Embrium in her hands, filled to the brim with the crimson leaves of the plant. She quickly took a glance down at the jar before turning back to the table to set it back down. "Uh..." she said, though she didn't formulate any actual words. Instead, she simply nodded and smiled. Her smile, Leon noted, was more melancholy than it was happy.
He wasnāt that surprised by the fact, though he did feel a twinge of sympathy. He suddenly wasnāt sure whether he should even bring it up; probably the reminder would be less welcome than just about anything else he could say, but he didnāt think he could simply not mention it, either. Leon hadnāt ever really thought of himself as a person lacking social graces. Certainly, he wasnāt the fluid speaker Marceline was, and he didnāt have the easy charm of Vesryn or the effortless wit of Cyrus, but heād never been particularly awkward, either.
This, thoughā¦ this made him feel awkward.
āI wanted to say Iām sorry,ā he ventured at last. If she reacted badly, he supposed he could just leave and never mention it again, or something. He struggled with the next words, because he really didnāt want to hurt her, and by comparison to most of the people he knew, she was quite fragile indeed. āThe last time I spoke to youā¦ I was more callous than I should have been. Itā¦ I forgot what it was like, the first time I lost someone I loved. It took me a little while to remember how different it was from any loss since.ā He wasnāt sure how heād managed to miss that detailāperhaps it was only the sheer amount of time that had elapsed, or perhaps it was something a little worse.
Asala's feet shuffled beneath her and she refused to meet Leon's eyes, looking instead down and away. She was very definitely uncomfortable with broaching the subject, but by the lack of an immediate reply, she also didn't know how to respond. It wasn't until a few moments later that she picked up a jar that read aloe, and began to inspect it that she finally said something. "It is... fine," she said with a rather timid tone. "You... did what you felt you had to," continued, turning the jar over in her hands. She seemed tired.
āAnd sometimes,ā he replied, āI am wrong.ā
But he decided to leave it at that. Grief was different for everyone, and if she would rather avoid the topic entirely, that was her business, and none of his unless she chose to share. āIs there anything I can do to help with these?ā He nodded to the jars she was surrounded by, picking up on her apparent fatigue but guessing she wouldnāt consent to simply stop working. Perhaps another pair of hands would lighten the burden a bit.
"Um..." She finally took her eyes off of the jar and to the table she had been working at moments ago. She scanned and paused, seemingly working out the best way they could use him. When she turned back to him, her lips held a weak smile. "Uh... If you can tell the difference between the herbs, I could... use the help sorting them," Asala said, gesturing to the herbs that were laid out on her table. She moved with much less of a frantic pace now, it seemed, far different than when she was drowning herself in her work only weeks ago.
āOf course.ā That much, he could do quite easily. Leon moved around the workstation, so as to take up a spot actually at it instead of next to it, which was slightly awkward considering his size and the fact that he was sharing it, but heād long learned by this point to be fluid enough and light enough on his feet that the problems that came of the bulk of his frame were minimized. Of course, that only applied when he was paying attention, as he tended to demonstrate whenever he was not.
His gloved hands made quick work of sorting the various plants, though a few looked similar enough to each other that he had to identify them by smell, occasionally raising a sprig to his nose. Some of them had been picked at different points in the growth cycle as well, which actually made them suitable for radically different purposes, so he kept separate piles on those criteria as well.
Several minutes into their work, soft footfalls signaled the approach of someone new to the infirmary. Romulus seemed to carry himself differently now, taller, a little more easily, less withdrawn into himself. His clothes and cloak were cleaner than he'd typically kept them in Haven. Still, he looked a bit uncertain, particularly upon approaching the workstation that Asala and Leon worked at, and clearing his throat.
"I heard you were back at work," he said carefully, coming to a stop just beyond arm's reach of the workstation. It seemed word traveled quickly. "I wanted to check on you, make sure you're doing alright." He paused for a second, shifting his weight onto his other foot, clearly deciding whether or not to add something. In the end, it slipped out.
"I missed you. I'm sure Khari won't mind me saying that she could never do your job." Old, healing wounds aside, it was obvious from his tone that wasn't the only reason he'd missed her.
Asala turned and held Romulus in her gaze for a moment. She seemed unsure of something, before she averted her gaze elsewhere. She looked at his feet as she spoke. "I hope..." she managed before she hesitated again. Something else was on her mind and it wasn't difficult to figure out what it was. The last time Asala had seen Romulus it had been Haven, with Meraad leaving with them to try and buy them time to escape. Now he returned, and Meraad was nowhere to be found. The melancholy and sadness was clear on her face, but she did not try to escape from the situation.
"I hope that she was enough and that you... weren't injured too badly," she said with an apologetic smile, though her eyes still remained downward. "It was... not too difficult, I hope. Oh... uh, your... journey, I mean," she said, finally making herself look at him, though when she began to trip over her words again, her eyes fell.
"It was not easy," he admitted, "but I'm alive. And I learned a lot about myself." He surveyed her for a moment, running a hand through his hair uneasily.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Asala. I didn't know Meraad well, but his bravery was plain to see. He died bravely." He looked like he wanted to say more, but also like he wasn't sure what to add. Death was an unpleasant thing, and there were only so many ways to soften it.
She managed a small, though pained, smile onto her lips as she nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly, glancing up to meet his eyes once more. She wavered for a moment, and her eyes threatened to mist over. Surprisingly however, they did not and instead she took a deep breath which seemed to have strengthened her resolve. She nodded, and glanced at her work table before returning her look to Romulus.
"Is there, uh, anything I can--I can do? For you I mean? Now?" she inquired with a tilt of her head.
Romulus took the cue easily enough, and nodded, clapping his hands together once. "Yes, actually. Most of my tonics were lost in the attack, or used after it. I'd hoped to steal some supplies, if you have some you can spare." His eyes passed swiftly over the sorted piles and labeled jars.
"You... do not have to steal them," she said quizzically. Leon cleared his throat, suppressing a chuckle. "But yes. We have an abundant supply now," she said, gesturing to the labeled jars sitting on the shelves "Just let one of us know, so we can, uh... keep track of stock," she said, scratching beneath her horns. It seemed that keeping stock wasn't her idea, but someone else's. By the way that Donovan nodded in approval off away from them said that it was most likely his.
"Right," Romulus assented. "I'll... make a list of what I need to take, and get back to you."
"Thank you," Asala said with an appreciative nod. A quiet moment passed with Asala glancing at the door that led outside before she spoke. "If... you both will excuse me. I... am going to take a walk. Maybe I will... visit the garden," she said with a heavy smile to Leon. It was apparent that she needed time to herself think about some things, and soon she made her exit.
Donovan watched her leave, his expression as impassive as the tranquil that he worked with. He made his way over to where Leon and Romulus stood, staring at the door the whole while. Finally he turned to regard them both. "She will be fine," he stated plainly, "Asala is stronger than she lets on. All she needs is time."
Leon nodded simply. āOf course.ā He certainly didnāt expect a person to recover from the death of a family member in the space of a month and a half, especially considering it hadnāt really been confirmed for her until a week or so ago. At least she was doing things like taking breaks now.
With a nod to Donovan and a half-smile in Romulusās direction, he turned back to his work. Heād at least bundle and label all of these before returning to his office.