In the month he'd spent with Khari in the wilderness, Romulus never found a cave quite like this one.
That was because Skyhold's undercroft was entirely man-made, carved right out of the rock, clearly with some sort of purpose in mind from whatever group had originally constructed the fortress. It was empty now, and when Rom first discovered it while touring the premises, he was quite drawn to it as a personal space. Even though it was located beneath the rest of Skyhold, a sort of basement, it was hardly as dark or dank as the cellar he'd often occupied beneath Haven's chantry building. The room was open to the outside air, a waist-high stone railing all that separated him from a significant fall down below. A waterfall roared down some distance along the rock face, but not loudly enough to be too huge a distraction.
Inquisition forces helped him clear the floors of dirt and bits of snow when he declared his intentions to use it for himself. It would take a bit of work getting what he wanted set up, but Rom still wasn't asking for all that much. He wondered briefly what would happen if he asked Lady Marceline to give up her quarters, so that the blood of Andraste might sleep there instead. Probably best not to find out; he figured he'd sleep more poorly in luxury anyway.
Before long he had a place to sleep, and a place to work. He took no more than he needed from Asala's supplies, knowing exactly how much would suffice to replenish his store of resistance tonics. The Inquisition seemed to be taking some time to regroup and build up its strength again before making any major moves, so Romulus doubted he'd be thrown into any heavy combat again for a while. Then again, he'd thought he was heading home the night Corypheus attacked Haven.
Looking around at his new space, it occurred to him how much of it there was. He really had very little to call his own. All of it fit in a single large chest: his few changes of clothes and cloaks, his weapons and armor, all of which were compact and lightweight. He didn't even know if the alchemical equipment was technically his yet, even though he was the only one to use it.
He leaned forward, settling his hands upon the railing and watching the waterfall for a moment. He supposed it was all he needed for the moment, and more than he'd ever expected to have.
Over the sound of the falls, he was able to hear the soft knock on his doorframe, a few tentative taps followed by footsteps. “Good afternoon, Romulus.” His visitor was Estella, dressed plainly and carrying what looked to be a heavy armful of fabric. Upon closer inspection, it was in the Inquisition’s colors, and lined with fur. “You, uh… well, there’s official heraldry now, so someone decided we should wear it, on our cloaks.”
She paused fractionally, looking almost like she were about to roll her eyes. “There’s a pun in there somewhere, I’m sure. Do you want me to set this down anywhere in particular?” She cast her eyes about the room, evidently making a curious study of his new residence, before her eyes fell back to him.
"Hello, Estella," he said, turning an offering a brief smile in greeting. "Uh, just on top of the chest there is fine." Official heraldry, was it? He wondered if they would try to force him to wear it. Any colors that weren't dark or earthy were typically not the ones that covered his skin.
Coming to join Estella on the upper section at the opposite end of the room from the railing, Romulus realized that some rugs would be very welcome. It was a rather cold space, and not just from the open air. It actually wasn't as chilly as one might've expected simply looking at it; some kind of heat source wafted up from the floor in several places. Romulus suspected they were sitting on a natural spring of some kind far below, but couldn't say for sure. Still, the walls were hard rock and so were the floors. It wasn't exactly an inviting place to live in.
"Seems like we've both been told who to be recently," he mused, taking a seat on the upper railing and crossing his arms. "I mean, unless becoming Inquisitor was your idea." His teasing was gentle, but he certainly didn't expect it had been Estella to lead the push into naming her Inquisitor. One didn't have to know her long to know that such a move wasn't in her.
She let out a breathy, short ha and shook her head emphatically. “Goodness, no. Some part of me is still surprised I agreed at all. But then… Rilien knows exactly what to say in every situation, it seems.” She sighed, leaning down to place her elbows on the railing, looking out at the falling water for several slow seconds. “I suppose… we needed someone. You or I would have made most sense just for the marks, and well… we thought we’d lost you.”
Her gaze fell to her hands, clasped together tightly, and she seemed to exercise conscious effort to ease them apart. “It seems like a silly thing to say—what do you say to someone who’s not dead after all—but I’m glad we hadn’t. Didn't.”
He hadn't known what to say to his father, either, a man that wasn't dead after all, but Romulus supposed that was a very different case. And indeed, the Inquisition hadn't lost him, and wouldn't lose him in the future, if luck held. He felt a pang of guilt, knowing he'd planned to intentionally leave, what could easily be seen as abandoning Estella to be the Inquisition's only Herald. But at the time, he'd thought the Inquisition's work mostly done, once the Breach was closed. As it turned out, it was only the beginning. What consequences he would face for staying, he couldn't say. Perhaps Chryseis would even allow it, if he deceived her for as long as he could. Someday it would rear its ugly head, that Romulus decided to live as a free man, but not today.
"I'm glad I didn't die either," he admitted half-smiling, though there was a certain amount of sadness to it. "There were many times when I thought it might be the end. Khari, too. I'd never have made it out of Haven without her." Nor would he have survived without the sacrifices of everyone that fought with him to bury the village under snow. It was easily the most difficult experience of his life, and yet now, on the other side of it, he could only see it as something that had changed him for the better. Changed him in a way that he found exciting. Hopeful.
"I don't know how we'll move ahead, but... it feels right. Being here." He'd have been miserable if he'd left, he knew that. Some part of him still thought it was the right choice, that this way was selfish. But that part was steadily being drowned out.
“You said something, once,” she murmured, shifting slightly where she stood, “about how this might be more than a simple coincidence after all.” It sounded like she was slightly uncomfortable saying it, or perhaps thinking about it, but it was clearly also something that she wanted to discuss, so she was making an effort to do so. Tipping her head back, she exhaled deeply.
“I don’t know about me, but it really is getting difficult to believe that you aren’t supposed to be here. I can’t imagine the kind of shock it was, to learn all of that about yourself in such a short time. And for it to be so different from anything you’d ever known.” She paused, turning fractionally to actually make eye contact, and smiling a bit. “I probably should envy you, but I don’t.” She looked like she might have said something else, but she must’ve decided against it.
Romulus thought about that for a while. It was a very difficult thing to come to any kind of terms with. "I always wanted to believe that I was working towards some purpose," he said, deciding to think out loud, so that Estella might be able to better understand his position. "There wasn't much else I could do to make the things I did right with myself, you know?" And he'd done horrible things, things that he had no desire for the world to know, if indeed he was to become well known as this sort of figure, which seemed to be in progress already. Even under the pretense that he'd done everything as a slave... he'd done them well.
He had a working knowledge of Qunlat, even. He'd understood the last words Meraad spoke while dying to defend him from a dragon. But only because he'd needed to understand the words spoken to him by prisoners that he inflicted the most exquisite variety of pain upon.
"I had to believe that there was a cause for the things my domi—Chryseis, had me do. And some part of me still believes she intends to make a change for the better... but I also believe her history and the environment she exists in have twisted her too much to ever be that, truly." It had been a necessary belief while he'd been under her heel, but now that he had removed himself from it, it seemed much easier to condemn her. Perhaps it was still not wise. People were not simple things, and Chryseis was among the most complex.
He made eye contact with her again. "But when I thought I might have some meaning... I never imagined this." He shook his head, smiling sadly. "I'm no leader. Honestly I think you're better suited to it. I don't know what my place should be, if all this is true."
She was quiet for a bit after that, thoughtfully so, it seemed. “Life is strange,” she said at last, and though the statement itself was quite simple, the way she said it implied a deeper complexity, or that she was thinking of something in particular. “And, well, you have time to decide what you want, I think. If this is what it’s shaping up to be, it’ll turn out to be a war, not a battle.” The words were heavy, but resigned.
“For what it’s worth…” Estella paused, pursing her lips. “I have a lot of weaknesses. Things I know I could be better at. Most of them… aren’t weaknesses I think you share. Maybe none of them are.” She lifted one of her hands, letting it rest at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Maybe the Inquisition does better with both of us at the front than it does with either of us alone there. I don’t know.” She shook her head just fractionally. “Just… something else to think about, I suppose.”
What was he good at? Romulus was not fond of most of the answers that came to him. Nor did he think those were particularly good qualities to be putting at the front of the Inquisition. Was it their goal to be feared? To have the world know that one of their leading figures excelled in deceit, in murder? It could be spun, he supposed, as Anais would. He was fighting against extreme forces of Tevinter, as Andraste had done so long ago. He had escaped a life of crude slavery, and rose up from the south a new person. It was true, he supposed, but... it was not the entire truth.
"If I am named Inquisitor, or... even if not, I'll do what I can to help where you need it. I doubt my judgement can be of much use... my teachers were much more violent than your own, I expect. But I'll try." What was it Revered Mother Annika had said after they'd met, what felt like an age ago? He could be Andraste's Wrath. He doubted she knew the significance of her own words when they'd been spoken, but it seemed to be coming true, now. He wasn't sure how he felt about it. Wrath, after all, was not all he wanted to be. It was just all he knew how.
"I should warn you," he began, uneasily, "about Anais. She has a low opinion of you, one I don't share, and despite what she thinks of me, I haven't been able to sway her." He hesitated. He knew Estella well enough at this point to know that she would probably take such a thing somewhat seriously, even if Anais's basis for claiming it was tenuous at best. But he'd already began, and she would need to know what was coming, so it was not a surprise.
"She... does not believe that you were chosen by Andraste in any way. Not only that, she suspects you of actually undermining me, attempting to steal power that was supposedly meant for me." He shifted his seat upon the railing, so he could better face her. "I've already assured her that you're not remotely the kind of person to do that. I cannot change her mind, but I have at least convinced her to keep her thoughts to herself on the subject, and allow me to handle it." His gaze was uncomfortable; obviously anything involving disputes over power was quite foreign to him.
"And I would much prefer it if we continued to help each other, rather than bicker over events neither of us remember."
“Oh.” Estella’s reply was delivered in a very small voice, and she turned her eyes to the floor. “I see.” It would appear that she was indeed taking the news quite poorly, but trying not to make a big event of as much. “I… yes. I’d prefer that, too. If we helped each other, I mean.” She sighed, twining her fingers and fidgeting with them awkwardly.
“I mean, she’s surely right. Er—about the Andraste thing. Not the rest of it. I don’t want—” She trailed off, and grimaced. “I don’t suppose you think it would help if I spoke to her about it?”
"Uh," Rom stumbled a bit, actually surprised by how shrunk she seemed by the words, even though he was aware of her tendencies. "No, I actually don't think speaking to her would help. She's... fairly fixated on these things, and not of a mind to be persuaded. Look," he pushed off of the railing and stood, placing his unmarked hand on her shoulder, "even if I'm blood of Andraste and you aren't, that doesn't also mean you weren't meant to be here. It doesn't change the fact that we lived in the same Chantry building as children, before either of us became what we are now." He still believed it was something, that the two of them should be afflicted as they were, together. And he felt that Estella being there with him made him stronger, not weaker, like she was somehow stealing power from him.
"Our roles have never been the same. You were what the Inquisition needed when I was thought dead, and you're still what it needs." He'd never been very good at speaking to friends, for he'd never had many real ones, and he didn't know if anything he said to Estella would help. He didn't have the same way with words that others had.
And what he did have was a shred of his own doubt, from the knowledge that accidents were entirely within the realm of possibility, and that Estella's involvement in everything could very well be just that: an accident. One that the Inquisition needed right now, but still, not divine in any way.
The words didn’t initially seem to have much effect, though the contact drew her eyes back to him, brow creased and a troubled expression on her face. “I… suppose. In any case, I’m kind of past the point of no return, with this whole Inquisitor thing. Not much backtracking from that.” It seemed quite the opposite of comforting to her, but she managed a small smile. “Thank you, though. I don’t think I’ve ever said it, but whether I was meant to be here or not, whether this is part of some plan or just a coincidence, I’m really glad I’m not the only one. And I’m glad the other one is you, blood of Andraste or otherwise.” She pushed back from her spot on the railing to stand as well, regaining her usual demeanor in the process.
She was very good at concealing things when she wanted to be, Romulus noted. That way she had of straightening herself, wiping her face clean of whatever was raging inside. He'd learned nothing of the sort in his years, and had always resorted to hiding his face, or more commonly just hiding himself, when he did not wish to be seen. Estella rarely had that option, certainly not of late, and soon Romulus wouldn't either.
"I'll try to make myself easier to find than in Haven, if you ever need to talk to me." He removed his hand from her shoulder, rubbing both of his together as he looked around his new living space, unusual as it was. "I'll try to have this place a bit more inviting by then, I think."
That was because Skyhold's undercroft was entirely man-made, carved right out of the rock, clearly with some sort of purpose in mind from whatever group had originally constructed the fortress. It was empty now, and when Rom first discovered it while touring the premises, he was quite drawn to it as a personal space. Even though it was located beneath the rest of Skyhold, a sort of basement, it was hardly as dark or dank as the cellar he'd often occupied beneath Haven's chantry building. The room was open to the outside air, a waist-high stone railing all that separated him from a significant fall down below. A waterfall roared down some distance along the rock face, but not loudly enough to be too huge a distraction.
Inquisition forces helped him clear the floors of dirt and bits of snow when he declared his intentions to use it for himself. It would take a bit of work getting what he wanted set up, but Rom still wasn't asking for all that much. He wondered briefly what would happen if he asked Lady Marceline to give up her quarters, so that the blood of Andraste might sleep there instead. Probably best not to find out; he figured he'd sleep more poorly in luxury anyway.
Before long he had a place to sleep, and a place to work. He took no more than he needed from Asala's supplies, knowing exactly how much would suffice to replenish his store of resistance tonics. The Inquisition seemed to be taking some time to regroup and build up its strength again before making any major moves, so Romulus doubted he'd be thrown into any heavy combat again for a while. Then again, he'd thought he was heading home the night Corypheus attacked Haven.
Looking around at his new space, it occurred to him how much of it there was. He really had very little to call his own. All of it fit in a single large chest: his few changes of clothes and cloaks, his weapons and armor, all of which were compact and lightweight. He didn't even know if the alchemical equipment was technically his yet, even though he was the only one to use it.
He leaned forward, settling his hands upon the railing and watching the waterfall for a moment. He supposed it was all he needed for the moment, and more than he'd ever expected to have.
Over the sound of the falls, he was able to hear the soft knock on his doorframe, a few tentative taps followed by footsteps. “Good afternoon, Romulus.” His visitor was Estella, dressed plainly and carrying what looked to be a heavy armful of fabric. Upon closer inspection, it was in the Inquisition’s colors, and lined with fur. “You, uh… well, there’s official heraldry now, so someone decided we should wear it, on our cloaks.”
She paused fractionally, looking almost like she were about to roll her eyes. “There’s a pun in there somewhere, I’m sure. Do you want me to set this down anywhere in particular?” She cast her eyes about the room, evidently making a curious study of his new residence, before her eyes fell back to him.
"Hello, Estella," he said, turning an offering a brief smile in greeting. "Uh, just on top of the chest there is fine." Official heraldry, was it? He wondered if they would try to force him to wear it. Any colors that weren't dark or earthy were typically not the ones that covered his skin.
Coming to join Estella on the upper section at the opposite end of the room from the railing, Romulus realized that some rugs would be very welcome. It was a rather cold space, and not just from the open air. It actually wasn't as chilly as one might've expected simply looking at it; some kind of heat source wafted up from the floor in several places. Romulus suspected they were sitting on a natural spring of some kind far below, but couldn't say for sure. Still, the walls were hard rock and so were the floors. It wasn't exactly an inviting place to live in.
"Seems like we've both been told who to be recently," he mused, taking a seat on the upper railing and crossing his arms. "I mean, unless becoming Inquisitor was your idea." His teasing was gentle, but he certainly didn't expect it had been Estella to lead the push into naming her Inquisitor. One didn't have to know her long to know that such a move wasn't in her.
She let out a breathy, short ha and shook her head emphatically. “Goodness, no. Some part of me is still surprised I agreed at all. But then… Rilien knows exactly what to say in every situation, it seems.” She sighed, leaning down to place her elbows on the railing, looking out at the falling water for several slow seconds. “I suppose… we needed someone. You or I would have made most sense just for the marks, and well… we thought we’d lost you.”
Her gaze fell to her hands, clasped together tightly, and she seemed to exercise conscious effort to ease them apart. “It seems like a silly thing to say—what do you say to someone who’s not dead after all—but I’m glad we hadn’t. Didn't.”
He hadn't known what to say to his father, either, a man that wasn't dead after all, but Romulus supposed that was a very different case. And indeed, the Inquisition hadn't lost him, and wouldn't lose him in the future, if luck held. He felt a pang of guilt, knowing he'd planned to intentionally leave, what could easily be seen as abandoning Estella to be the Inquisition's only Herald. But at the time, he'd thought the Inquisition's work mostly done, once the Breach was closed. As it turned out, it was only the beginning. What consequences he would face for staying, he couldn't say. Perhaps Chryseis would even allow it, if he deceived her for as long as he could. Someday it would rear its ugly head, that Romulus decided to live as a free man, but not today.
"I'm glad I didn't die either," he admitted half-smiling, though there was a certain amount of sadness to it. "There were many times when I thought it might be the end. Khari, too. I'd never have made it out of Haven without her." Nor would he have survived without the sacrifices of everyone that fought with him to bury the village under snow. It was easily the most difficult experience of his life, and yet now, on the other side of it, he could only see it as something that had changed him for the better. Changed him in a way that he found exciting. Hopeful.
"I don't know how we'll move ahead, but... it feels right. Being here." He'd have been miserable if he'd left, he knew that. Some part of him still thought it was the right choice, that this way was selfish. But that part was steadily being drowned out.
“You said something, once,” she murmured, shifting slightly where she stood, “about how this might be more than a simple coincidence after all.” It sounded like she was slightly uncomfortable saying it, or perhaps thinking about it, but it was clearly also something that she wanted to discuss, so she was making an effort to do so. Tipping her head back, she exhaled deeply.
“I don’t know about me, but it really is getting difficult to believe that you aren’t supposed to be here. I can’t imagine the kind of shock it was, to learn all of that about yourself in such a short time. And for it to be so different from anything you’d ever known.” She paused, turning fractionally to actually make eye contact, and smiling a bit. “I probably should envy you, but I don’t.” She looked like she might have said something else, but she must’ve decided against it.
Romulus thought about that for a while. It was a very difficult thing to come to any kind of terms with. "I always wanted to believe that I was working towards some purpose," he said, deciding to think out loud, so that Estella might be able to better understand his position. "There wasn't much else I could do to make the things I did right with myself, you know?" And he'd done horrible things, things that he had no desire for the world to know, if indeed he was to become well known as this sort of figure, which seemed to be in progress already. Even under the pretense that he'd done everything as a slave... he'd done them well.
He had a working knowledge of Qunlat, even. He'd understood the last words Meraad spoke while dying to defend him from a dragon. But only because he'd needed to understand the words spoken to him by prisoners that he inflicted the most exquisite variety of pain upon.
"I had to believe that there was a cause for the things my domi—Chryseis, had me do. And some part of me still believes she intends to make a change for the better... but I also believe her history and the environment she exists in have twisted her too much to ever be that, truly." It had been a necessary belief while he'd been under her heel, but now that he had removed himself from it, it seemed much easier to condemn her. Perhaps it was still not wise. People were not simple things, and Chryseis was among the most complex.
He made eye contact with her again. "But when I thought I might have some meaning... I never imagined this." He shook his head, smiling sadly. "I'm no leader. Honestly I think you're better suited to it. I don't know what my place should be, if all this is true."
She was quiet for a bit after that, thoughtfully so, it seemed. “Life is strange,” she said at last, and though the statement itself was quite simple, the way she said it implied a deeper complexity, or that she was thinking of something in particular. “And, well, you have time to decide what you want, I think. If this is what it’s shaping up to be, it’ll turn out to be a war, not a battle.” The words were heavy, but resigned.
“For what it’s worth…” Estella paused, pursing her lips. “I have a lot of weaknesses. Things I know I could be better at. Most of them… aren’t weaknesses I think you share. Maybe none of them are.” She lifted one of her hands, letting it rest at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Maybe the Inquisition does better with both of us at the front than it does with either of us alone there. I don’t know.” She shook her head just fractionally. “Just… something else to think about, I suppose.”
What was he good at? Romulus was not fond of most of the answers that came to him. Nor did he think those were particularly good qualities to be putting at the front of the Inquisition. Was it their goal to be feared? To have the world know that one of their leading figures excelled in deceit, in murder? It could be spun, he supposed, as Anais would. He was fighting against extreme forces of Tevinter, as Andraste had done so long ago. He had escaped a life of crude slavery, and rose up from the south a new person. It was true, he supposed, but... it was not the entire truth.
"If I am named Inquisitor, or... even if not, I'll do what I can to help where you need it. I doubt my judgement can be of much use... my teachers were much more violent than your own, I expect. But I'll try." What was it Revered Mother Annika had said after they'd met, what felt like an age ago? He could be Andraste's Wrath. He doubted she knew the significance of her own words when they'd been spoken, but it seemed to be coming true, now. He wasn't sure how he felt about it. Wrath, after all, was not all he wanted to be. It was just all he knew how.
"I should warn you," he began, uneasily, "about Anais. She has a low opinion of you, one I don't share, and despite what she thinks of me, I haven't been able to sway her." He hesitated. He knew Estella well enough at this point to know that she would probably take such a thing somewhat seriously, even if Anais's basis for claiming it was tenuous at best. But he'd already began, and she would need to know what was coming, so it was not a surprise.
"She... does not believe that you were chosen by Andraste in any way. Not only that, she suspects you of actually undermining me, attempting to steal power that was supposedly meant for me." He shifted his seat upon the railing, so he could better face her. "I've already assured her that you're not remotely the kind of person to do that. I cannot change her mind, but I have at least convinced her to keep her thoughts to herself on the subject, and allow me to handle it." His gaze was uncomfortable; obviously anything involving disputes over power was quite foreign to him.
"And I would much prefer it if we continued to help each other, rather than bicker over events neither of us remember."
“Oh.” Estella’s reply was delivered in a very small voice, and she turned her eyes to the floor. “I see.” It would appear that she was indeed taking the news quite poorly, but trying not to make a big event of as much. “I… yes. I’d prefer that, too. If we helped each other, I mean.” She sighed, twining her fingers and fidgeting with them awkwardly.
“I mean, she’s surely right. Er—about the Andraste thing. Not the rest of it. I don’t want—” She trailed off, and grimaced. “I don’t suppose you think it would help if I spoke to her about it?”
"Uh," Rom stumbled a bit, actually surprised by how shrunk she seemed by the words, even though he was aware of her tendencies. "No, I actually don't think speaking to her would help. She's... fairly fixated on these things, and not of a mind to be persuaded. Look," he pushed off of the railing and stood, placing his unmarked hand on her shoulder, "even if I'm blood of Andraste and you aren't, that doesn't also mean you weren't meant to be here. It doesn't change the fact that we lived in the same Chantry building as children, before either of us became what we are now." He still believed it was something, that the two of them should be afflicted as they were, together. And he felt that Estella being there with him made him stronger, not weaker, like she was somehow stealing power from him.
"Our roles have never been the same. You were what the Inquisition needed when I was thought dead, and you're still what it needs." He'd never been very good at speaking to friends, for he'd never had many real ones, and he didn't know if anything he said to Estella would help. He didn't have the same way with words that others had.
And what he did have was a shred of his own doubt, from the knowledge that accidents were entirely within the realm of possibility, and that Estella's involvement in everything could very well be just that: an accident. One that the Inquisition needed right now, but still, not divine in any way.
The words didn’t initially seem to have much effect, though the contact drew her eyes back to him, brow creased and a troubled expression on her face. “I… suppose. In any case, I’m kind of past the point of no return, with this whole Inquisitor thing. Not much backtracking from that.” It seemed quite the opposite of comforting to her, but she managed a small smile. “Thank you, though. I don’t think I’ve ever said it, but whether I was meant to be here or not, whether this is part of some plan or just a coincidence, I’m really glad I’m not the only one. And I’m glad the other one is you, blood of Andraste or otherwise.” She pushed back from her spot on the railing to stand as well, regaining her usual demeanor in the process.
She was very good at concealing things when she wanted to be, Romulus noted. That way she had of straightening herself, wiping her face clean of whatever was raging inside. He'd learned nothing of the sort in his years, and had always resorted to hiding his face, or more commonly just hiding himself, when he did not wish to be seen. Estella rarely had that option, certainly not of late, and soon Romulus wouldn't either.
"I'll try to make myself easier to find than in Haven, if you ever need to talk to me." He removed his hand from her shoulder, rubbing both of his together as he looked around his new living space, unusual as it was. "I'll try to have this place a bit more inviting by then, I think."