Leon hummed, setting another half-full supply crate aside and stepping farther towards the back of the tack room. Most of the wooden boxes in this room were being used, which meant either he’d have to find something he could put into another box, or else go check the smithy and see if they had anything. Those would probably be too big, though, and he was in a considerable hurry, which just made his present lack of success all that much more frustrating to him.
With a grunt, he picked up a stack of three crates and shifted them to the side of the room—someone had neglected to organize the place in any logical way whatsoever. He’d have to send Reed down to have a discussion with the Quartermaster. The spare horsemanship supplies they stored here were certainly not top priority, but the Inquisition had been at Skyhold for nearly two months. This should have been done already—
A sudden cracking sound disrupted his chain of thought, and Leon snapped his eyes down to his hands, where he’d broken through one of the slats on the bottom crate with his grip. Swearing softly in his mother tongue, he controlled the fall of the crates as well as he could, catching the uppermost one as it fell from the stack and setting it to rights. There was a loud bang as the one on the bottom hit the wooden floor of the building, and Leon sighed heavily, running a hand down his face.
“Having troubles, Commander?” The sly tone of voice could only belong to Cyrus, apparently drawn to the room by the crashing of the crates onto the ground. “I wasn’t aware a man of your rank spent his afternoons organizing messy storage areas, but I suppose everyone has their eccentricities.” He smiled, the expression in good humor at least, and leaned a shoulder against the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest.
Estella leaned around him, fixing Leon with a much more concerned expression. That probably made some sense, since she’d had more exposure to his unfortunate episodes than her brother had. That somehow only managed to make him feel worse, but he concealed it in the same way he always did—he smiled gently and shrugged his massive shoulders. “If only all eccentricities were so productive. But no—I came here in search of an empty box or crate, a small one.”
The Inquisitor blinked, raising both eyebrows. “Um. I think I have one in my, uh… office, still. I’m still only just setting it up, so…” She paused, tilting her head to one side. “I can go get it for you, and bring it to yours?”
He was reluctant to send her on what was essentially an errand for him, a personal one at that, but she seemed willing enough to do it, and so he nodded. “I would appreciate that, Estella. If you would be so kind as to meet me back there in a few minutes?” She nodded and stepped backwards out the door, turning towards the main keep and leaving him with Cyrus.
“I’m stopping by the kitchens on the way back,” Leon said, not really sure if the slightly-elder Avenarius had any interest in accompanying him. In either case, he had to get past him to exit the room.
Cyrus lifted a shoulder, stepping back and out of the doorframe with a smooth motion. “I notice you’ve yet to explain what all this is about.” When Leon set in the direction of the kitchens, Cyrus fell into step beside him, keeping pace easily despite the five-inch difference in their heights. “Is it to remain a secret, or can I convince you to divulge, hm?”
Leon scoffed softly, shaking his head. “It’s not really a secret in the first place,” he said, ducking into the mess and making his way to the back, where the humbler of Skyhold’s kitchens was to be found. There was the one in the main building, which served the officers, irregulars, and diplomatic guests, and the one here, which was for the barracks and visiting merchants, that sort of thing. As in Haven, the regulars didn’t eat badly by any means, but these were people who did not require unnecessarily-extravagant fare, and so the Inquisition bought whatever was available and affordable, and the cooks put it to use.
“I’ve told you already, there’s nothing for you to eat until—oh, it’s you, Commander.” The cook on duty at the moment was a middle-aged dwarven woman, and Leon was rather glad she’d recognized him in time, because she might well have smacked his knee with a kitchen implement had she not. As it was, she looked a little chagrined, and he shook his head slightly.
“Quite all right, Ygrisse. I came to request some milk or cream, if you’ve any to spare.”
She raised a brow, but didn’t seem to find the request all that unusual. “Sure we do. Here.” She stepped down from the block she used to bring herself up to counter-level and moved to the back of the room, near the door out the other side. Flipping open the lid of an icebox, she pulled out a glass bottle and tossed it in his direction. The lob was easy, and Leon caught it by reflex, nodding his thanks.
“Much obliged. We’ll be out of your hair now.”
Ygrisse chuckled. “No trouble, Commander. You should bring this one back more often. He looks a little like he could use a meal.” She nodded her chin upwards at Cyrus, who sighed.
“Why does everyone say that? It’s not like I’m particularly thin.” He looked down at himself as though to make the point, and to be fair, he wasn’t. He had the build of a leaner man, certainly, but he was in much better condition physically than most of those who used magic as a method of combat. He glanced over at Leon. “Perhaps I should stop standing next to you. It’s bound to make anyone look peckish by comparison.”
Ygrisse laughed outright. “Fair enough. Now go on, both of you. I’ve work to do.” She waved them out with an impatient gesture, and both took their leave the way they’d come. As Leon had no other stops to make, they climbed an inner staircase to the ramparts thereafter. The wind was cold up here, and strong, but it didn’t bother him much anymore.
A door on level with the wall led into his office, and Leon pushed it open mostly with his shoulder, leading the way inside. It was much warmer therein, mostly the result of the sudden loss of wind and the fire going in the hearth on the north wall. It wasn’t a particularly luxurious space, being quite plain compared to, say, Lady Marceline’s own, but Leon preferred it this way. His desk was minimalist in terms of lines and very large overall, in part a concession to his own dimensions and in part just because he had so many things to put on it. Paperwork, inkwells and quills, wax and a seal, and any books he might be using for reference. The rest of his small collection was in a shelf not too far away, and he’d finally acquired chairs, two of which sat in a corner, on either side of a small round table.
Estella, it seemed, had already made it inside, and she was crouched near the desk, a small crate beside her, having already found the point of this whole excursion. On a pile of blankets in front of the desk, several small bodies squirmed about, eyes closed, little paws reaching out for something that was not there. Pitiful mewling noises came from the spot, and Leon sighed heavily. The sound drew her attention towards them, and when she turned, her expression was caught somewhere between wonder and melancholy.
“Leon…” She didn’t seem to know what to say next.
“Kittens?” Cyrus moved around to his sister’s other side, crouching as well, though at a greater distance. He studied them like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of them, a slight frown on his face. There were five in total, ranging in coloration from the largest, a tortoiseshell-patterned one with white paws, all the way down to the runt, an all-black female who already looked like she was half a step from death.
His brows drew together over his eyes, and he looked skeptically up at Leon. “What happened to the mother cat? These can’t be any more than a day old.”
“She died,” Leon replied quietly. “I think she was from Haven originally—she must have gotten on one of the carts somehow and made the journey with us. The first time I saw her, I thought she was starved.” The distended belly would have been explained by that just as easily, and she was otherwise extremely thin and mangy. “I’d been trying to get her to eat for several weeks, but I didn’t think she’d ever come close enough for me to do anything but that.”
Apparently, however, when push had come to shove and she’d sought out someplace safe to have her litter, she’d chosen to wedge herself under his desk. “She wasn’t strong enough to survive the labor. I buried her in the garden last night.” His eyes fell to the kittens, and he picked up the box Estella had brought with her. It would serve his purposes just fine, for now.
“Can the two of you mind them while I move their blankets into this? I don’t want them crawling away somewhere and getting hurt.” Estella nodded immediately, using her hands to carefully scoop up the smallest one first, shifting to look at her brother, holding her cupped hands out towards him.
“Careful. She’s really little.”
“Uh…” For once, Cyrus looked completely out of his element, uncertain and awkward. He fell back onto his rear, crossing his legs underneath him on the floor. “Are you sure you can’t just hold all of them? I’m not good with… fragile things.” He said it with disdain, perhaps, but there was something off about it, as though it were meant to conceal something else, though what that something was couldn’t be discerned. His face twisted into a grimace as he held his hands out and let his sister carefully hand him the kitten, which immediately pawed weakly at the base of his thumb with its tiny claws.
Cyrus flinched, though obviously not from pain, and brought it close to his chest, settling it in the crook of his elbow. His obvious discomfort only seemed to increase, but he obligingly let Estella hand him two more. Tension remained clearly observable in the line of his shoulders, and a muscle in his jaw jumped.
Leon was fairly sure he knew the look, because he felt it often enough himself: a reluctance to handle something so small and fragile, for fear he lacked the gentleness required. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep them alive in the first place, but… it felt wrong not to at least make the attempt. If that mother cat had jumped into a cart with them all the way from Haven, and sought this place out as the right one to have her kittens, well… it seemed the least he could do to try and save them from her fate. Perhaps he was making too much of it; it was rare that he was this sentimental.
Carefully, he lined the crate with the blankets, settling onto the ground himself. Reaching into a pocket, he produced the fruits of his first stop on today’s supply run: alchemical droppers he’d borrowed from Rilien. The tranquil had assured him that they were clean and sanitary, and since he lacked any other means of feeding them, he hoped they’d work. He handed one each to Estella and Cyrus. “If you don’t mind lending me a hand, I’d like to make sure they all eat something as soon as possible. The others can rest in the crate until we can get to them.” He was particularly worried about the runty one Cyrus held.
Estella hummed an agreement and saw to the arrangements, handing one of the kittens to Leon and transferring two of the ones her brother held back into the crate and the warmth of the blankets. She went to pick up the milk bottle and frowned, her brows knitting together. “This is probably too cold. Here…” She concentrated for a moment, and slowly, condensation began to form on the outside of the glass bottle. After a few seconds, she smiled brightly. “That’s better. Cyrus, hand me your dropper?”
Cyrus, still holding the runt, handed it over without protest. When he received it back, however, he glanced between it and the kitten with very evident trepidation. “Stellulam, I do not know what I am doing.” The words were almost pained, though whether that was because he had admitted to not knowing something or because the situation was simply profoundly uncomfortable to him was difficult to say.
“I know,” she replied, “that’s why I’m going to show you.” She held her hand out for Leon’s dropper, and he gave it over without protest, sensing that she was the one with the knowledge here and perfectly willing to let her do the teaching. He hardly had any idea what he was doing, either, anyway.
“Not really how I was planning on this day going,” he conceded, moving a gloved index finger gently along the side of the orange-striped creature dwarfed by his other hand. Even through the thin leather, he could feel its tiny rib cage, the bones even more frail than those belonging to a bird, at this stage. It was almost alarming, to know that this was a life he could hold like this. It scared him, how utterly delicate it was. How one wrong move, one unlucky hand-spasm from him, could snuff that life out. A strange thing to be afraid of, for someone who killed for a living. It mewled softly, and he felt something in his chest tighten. He wasn’t sure if there was some relevant difference or not, between that and this, but he felt one. Maybe it was just that no one had ever depended on him for its livelihood in this way before.
“You and I both." Cyrus was quick to quip back, but he seemed afraid to stop watching the kitten he held, and his eyes remained fixed on her.
When Estella handed Leon's dropper back to him, he accepted it, finding the glass warm to the touch. He’d never actually seen her do magic before; he’d been told she was a mage, but forgotten the fact until this point. She certainly didn’t use it in the same way Cyrus or Asala did. “You have to be really careful with them,” she said softly, cradling hers close to her body. “And you have to mind what they’re telling you. If you try to go too fast, they’ll get sick, or inhale it. So if you have to, err on the side of going much too slow.”
She demonstrated, lowering the tip of her dropper to the kitten’s questing mouth, only for it to turn its head away. “I know,” she murmured, “not what you want, is it? I promise it’s good for you, bellatulus.” She squeezed the end of the dropper enough to bead a bit of the milk on the end of it and tried again, just as gently. This time, it seemed to work, and it wasn’t long before the kitten, likely ravenous, had consumed the entire dropper’s worth, its belly rounding out slightly with satiation.
“Well,” she said, moving it back to the crate with its siblings, “they can eat. That’s a good sign. You two try it.”
Cyrus wore an almost too-serious expression, peering down at the little thing in resting against the inside of his arm like it was a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved. His brows descended heavily over his eyes, which were narrowed slightly. It wasn’t impossible to note that his hand shook a little when he moved his dropper, and perhaps because of this, it took him more than half a dozen tries before he was at all successful, and even then, he went much more slowly than Estella had, utterly fixated on the task to which he’d been set, however reluctantly.
He heaved a sigh of obvious relief when the dropper was empty, glancing up at the both of them. In the moment before he remembered to smooth over his expression, it was surprisingly soft, considering his usual attitude towards things. “I’m not doing another one.” He announced it decisively, but he moved with utmost delicacy when he put the kitten down in her box, and rubbed the top of her head with the pad of a finger.
“They’re… very soft, aren’t they?”
“They are.” Leon supposed he’d have to take their word for it, considering that he was wearing gloves. They managed to get all of the kittens fed, and he had to admit to an immense sense of relief when they did.
“They’re definitely not out of the woods yet,” Estella said sadly, petting them gently as they fell asleep, “but if we keep them warm and their blankets clean and feed them regularly, they have a fighting chance.” Leon knew her well enough to guess that she’d be quite insistent on helping with that, and frankly he was glad of it. She seemed to have a better idea of how to handle all of this than he did.
“Where did you learn to take care of kittens?” He knew the Lions taught a lot of skills, but this was definitely not one of them.
She glanced up at him and smiled. “Minrathous has a lot of strays,” she said. “I was in a situation like this once. One of the Chantry servants, Falon, taught me how to do this kind of thing. He was… very good with all sorts of animals.” He supposed that made some kind of sense.
“And you Cyrus? I don’t think I can look after them all by myself, and Estella likely won’t be able to, either.” He was much less certain of what the other Avenarius would do than he was of his sister. Generosity was not the first trait that naturally came to mind when one considered him, but he’d been surprisingly willing to make an attempt of this today, so perhaps there was yet a point in asking.
For a moment, Cyrus regarded him with a flat look, but then his eyes wandered down to the box, and the sleeping creatures within, and he shook his head. “I suppose.” He didn’t exactly sound pleased about it, but he wasn’t refusing. “But I make no promises.” His lips pursed, but whatever else he’d been thinking of saying, he kept to himself. His protest, such as it was, seemed a bit thin, but there was real reluctance in his expression.
Estella, at least, didn’t seem to believe that he was really all that upset about it, and she rolled her eyes at him. “It’ll give him a reason to leave his atelier. I’m all for it.”
Leon chuckled, then nodded slightly, rising to his feet. “All right then. I can keep them for the rest of today, but I have several meetings tomorrow, so I’ll bring them by your office, shall I?” She inclined her head by way of agreement, rising as well and taking her brother’s arm when he did the same.
“Sure. Let us know if you need help with them later tonight or something, though. And start working on names. They’ll need those eventually.” She half-smiled, then elbowed Cyrus. “This one gets to name the little girl, though. I saw that look on your face.”
“I've no idea what you're talking about. There was no look." Their lighthearted bickering carried on past Leon's office door, but faded as it closed behind them.
With a grunt, he picked up a stack of three crates and shifted them to the side of the room—someone had neglected to organize the place in any logical way whatsoever. He’d have to send Reed down to have a discussion with the Quartermaster. The spare horsemanship supplies they stored here were certainly not top priority, but the Inquisition had been at Skyhold for nearly two months. This should have been done already—
A sudden cracking sound disrupted his chain of thought, and Leon snapped his eyes down to his hands, where he’d broken through one of the slats on the bottom crate with his grip. Swearing softly in his mother tongue, he controlled the fall of the crates as well as he could, catching the uppermost one as it fell from the stack and setting it to rights. There was a loud bang as the one on the bottom hit the wooden floor of the building, and Leon sighed heavily, running a hand down his face.
“Having troubles, Commander?” The sly tone of voice could only belong to Cyrus, apparently drawn to the room by the crashing of the crates onto the ground. “I wasn’t aware a man of your rank spent his afternoons organizing messy storage areas, but I suppose everyone has their eccentricities.” He smiled, the expression in good humor at least, and leaned a shoulder against the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest.
Estella leaned around him, fixing Leon with a much more concerned expression. That probably made some sense, since she’d had more exposure to his unfortunate episodes than her brother had. That somehow only managed to make him feel worse, but he concealed it in the same way he always did—he smiled gently and shrugged his massive shoulders. “If only all eccentricities were so productive. But no—I came here in search of an empty box or crate, a small one.”
The Inquisitor blinked, raising both eyebrows. “Um. I think I have one in my, uh… office, still. I’m still only just setting it up, so…” She paused, tilting her head to one side. “I can go get it for you, and bring it to yours?”
He was reluctant to send her on what was essentially an errand for him, a personal one at that, but she seemed willing enough to do it, and so he nodded. “I would appreciate that, Estella. If you would be so kind as to meet me back there in a few minutes?” She nodded and stepped backwards out the door, turning towards the main keep and leaving him with Cyrus.
“I’m stopping by the kitchens on the way back,” Leon said, not really sure if the slightly-elder Avenarius had any interest in accompanying him. In either case, he had to get past him to exit the room.
Cyrus lifted a shoulder, stepping back and out of the doorframe with a smooth motion. “I notice you’ve yet to explain what all this is about.” When Leon set in the direction of the kitchens, Cyrus fell into step beside him, keeping pace easily despite the five-inch difference in their heights. “Is it to remain a secret, or can I convince you to divulge, hm?”
Leon scoffed softly, shaking his head. “It’s not really a secret in the first place,” he said, ducking into the mess and making his way to the back, where the humbler of Skyhold’s kitchens was to be found. There was the one in the main building, which served the officers, irregulars, and diplomatic guests, and the one here, which was for the barracks and visiting merchants, that sort of thing. As in Haven, the regulars didn’t eat badly by any means, but these were people who did not require unnecessarily-extravagant fare, and so the Inquisition bought whatever was available and affordable, and the cooks put it to use.
“I’ve told you already, there’s nothing for you to eat until—oh, it’s you, Commander.” The cook on duty at the moment was a middle-aged dwarven woman, and Leon was rather glad she’d recognized him in time, because she might well have smacked his knee with a kitchen implement had she not. As it was, she looked a little chagrined, and he shook his head slightly.
“Quite all right, Ygrisse. I came to request some milk or cream, if you’ve any to spare.”
She raised a brow, but didn’t seem to find the request all that unusual. “Sure we do. Here.” She stepped down from the block she used to bring herself up to counter-level and moved to the back of the room, near the door out the other side. Flipping open the lid of an icebox, she pulled out a glass bottle and tossed it in his direction. The lob was easy, and Leon caught it by reflex, nodding his thanks.
“Much obliged. We’ll be out of your hair now.”
Ygrisse chuckled. “No trouble, Commander. You should bring this one back more often. He looks a little like he could use a meal.” She nodded her chin upwards at Cyrus, who sighed.
“Why does everyone say that? It’s not like I’m particularly thin.” He looked down at himself as though to make the point, and to be fair, he wasn’t. He had the build of a leaner man, certainly, but he was in much better condition physically than most of those who used magic as a method of combat. He glanced over at Leon. “Perhaps I should stop standing next to you. It’s bound to make anyone look peckish by comparison.”
Ygrisse laughed outright. “Fair enough. Now go on, both of you. I’ve work to do.” She waved them out with an impatient gesture, and both took their leave the way they’d come. As Leon had no other stops to make, they climbed an inner staircase to the ramparts thereafter. The wind was cold up here, and strong, but it didn’t bother him much anymore.
A door on level with the wall led into his office, and Leon pushed it open mostly with his shoulder, leading the way inside. It was much warmer therein, mostly the result of the sudden loss of wind and the fire going in the hearth on the north wall. It wasn’t a particularly luxurious space, being quite plain compared to, say, Lady Marceline’s own, but Leon preferred it this way. His desk was minimalist in terms of lines and very large overall, in part a concession to his own dimensions and in part just because he had so many things to put on it. Paperwork, inkwells and quills, wax and a seal, and any books he might be using for reference. The rest of his small collection was in a shelf not too far away, and he’d finally acquired chairs, two of which sat in a corner, on either side of a small round table.
Estella, it seemed, had already made it inside, and she was crouched near the desk, a small crate beside her, having already found the point of this whole excursion. On a pile of blankets in front of the desk, several small bodies squirmed about, eyes closed, little paws reaching out for something that was not there. Pitiful mewling noises came from the spot, and Leon sighed heavily. The sound drew her attention towards them, and when she turned, her expression was caught somewhere between wonder and melancholy.
“Leon…” She didn’t seem to know what to say next.
“Kittens?” Cyrus moved around to his sister’s other side, crouching as well, though at a greater distance. He studied them like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of them, a slight frown on his face. There were five in total, ranging in coloration from the largest, a tortoiseshell-patterned one with white paws, all the way down to the runt, an all-black female who already looked like she was half a step from death.
His brows drew together over his eyes, and he looked skeptically up at Leon. “What happened to the mother cat? These can’t be any more than a day old.”
“She died,” Leon replied quietly. “I think she was from Haven originally—she must have gotten on one of the carts somehow and made the journey with us. The first time I saw her, I thought she was starved.” The distended belly would have been explained by that just as easily, and she was otherwise extremely thin and mangy. “I’d been trying to get her to eat for several weeks, but I didn’t think she’d ever come close enough for me to do anything but that.”
Apparently, however, when push had come to shove and she’d sought out someplace safe to have her litter, she’d chosen to wedge herself under his desk. “She wasn’t strong enough to survive the labor. I buried her in the garden last night.” His eyes fell to the kittens, and he picked up the box Estella had brought with her. It would serve his purposes just fine, for now.
“Can the two of you mind them while I move their blankets into this? I don’t want them crawling away somewhere and getting hurt.” Estella nodded immediately, using her hands to carefully scoop up the smallest one first, shifting to look at her brother, holding her cupped hands out towards him.
“Careful. She’s really little.”
“Uh…” For once, Cyrus looked completely out of his element, uncertain and awkward. He fell back onto his rear, crossing his legs underneath him on the floor. “Are you sure you can’t just hold all of them? I’m not good with… fragile things.” He said it with disdain, perhaps, but there was something off about it, as though it were meant to conceal something else, though what that something was couldn’t be discerned. His face twisted into a grimace as he held his hands out and let his sister carefully hand him the kitten, which immediately pawed weakly at the base of his thumb with its tiny claws.
Cyrus flinched, though obviously not from pain, and brought it close to his chest, settling it in the crook of his elbow. His obvious discomfort only seemed to increase, but he obligingly let Estella hand him two more. Tension remained clearly observable in the line of his shoulders, and a muscle in his jaw jumped.
Leon was fairly sure he knew the look, because he felt it often enough himself: a reluctance to handle something so small and fragile, for fear he lacked the gentleness required. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep them alive in the first place, but… it felt wrong not to at least make the attempt. If that mother cat had jumped into a cart with them all the way from Haven, and sought this place out as the right one to have her kittens, well… it seemed the least he could do to try and save them from her fate. Perhaps he was making too much of it; it was rare that he was this sentimental.
Carefully, he lined the crate with the blankets, settling onto the ground himself. Reaching into a pocket, he produced the fruits of his first stop on today’s supply run: alchemical droppers he’d borrowed from Rilien. The tranquil had assured him that they were clean and sanitary, and since he lacked any other means of feeding them, he hoped they’d work. He handed one each to Estella and Cyrus. “If you don’t mind lending me a hand, I’d like to make sure they all eat something as soon as possible. The others can rest in the crate until we can get to them.” He was particularly worried about the runty one Cyrus held.
Estella hummed an agreement and saw to the arrangements, handing one of the kittens to Leon and transferring two of the ones her brother held back into the crate and the warmth of the blankets. She went to pick up the milk bottle and frowned, her brows knitting together. “This is probably too cold. Here…” She concentrated for a moment, and slowly, condensation began to form on the outside of the glass bottle. After a few seconds, she smiled brightly. “That’s better. Cyrus, hand me your dropper?”
Cyrus, still holding the runt, handed it over without protest. When he received it back, however, he glanced between it and the kitten with very evident trepidation. “Stellulam, I do not know what I am doing.” The words were almost pained, though whether that was because he had admitted to not knowing something or because the situation was simply profoundly uncomfortable to him was difficult to say.
“I know,” she replied, “that’s why I’m going to show you.” She held her hand out for Leon’s dropper, and he gave it over without protest, sensing that she was the one with the knowledge here and perfectly willing to let her do the teaching. He hardly had any idea what he was doing, either, anyway.
“Not really how I was planning on this day going,” he conceded, moving a gloved index finger gently along the side of the orange-striped creature dwarfed by his other hand. Even through the thin leather, he could feel its tiny rib cage, the bones even more frail than those belonging to a bird, at this stage. It was almost alarming, to know that this was a life he could hold like this. It scared him, how utterly delicate it was. How one wrong move, one unlucky hand-spasm from him, could snuff that life out. A strange thing to be afraid of, for someone who killed for a living. It mewled softly, and he felt something in his chest tighten. He wasn’t sure if there was some relevant difference or not, between that and this, but he felt one. Maybe it was just that no one had ever depended on him for its livelihood in this way before.
“You and I both." Cyrus was quick to quip back, but he seemed afraid to stop watching the kitten he held, and his eyes remained fixed on her.
When Estella handed Leon's dropper back to him, he accepted it, finding the glass warm to the touch. He’d never actually seen her do magic before; he’d been told she was a mage, but forgotten the fact until this point. She certainly didn’t use it in the same way Cyrus or Asala did. “You have to be really careful with them,” she said softly, cradling hers close to her body. “And you have to mind what they’re telling you. If you try to go too fast, they’ll get sick, or inhale it. So if you have to, err on the side of going much too slow.”
She demonstrated, lowering the tip of her dropper to the kitten’s questing mouth, only for it to turn its head away. “I know,” she murmured, “not what you want, is it? I promise it’s good for you, bellatulus.” She squeezed the end of the dropper enough to bead a bit of the milk on the end of it and tried again, just as gently. This time, it seemed to work, and it wasn’t long before the kitten, likely ravenous, had consumed the entire dropper’s worth, its belly rounding out slightly with satiation.
“Well,” she said, moving it back to the crate with its siblings, “they can eat. That’s a good sign. You two try it.”
Cyrus wore an almost too-serious expression, peering down at the little thing in resting against the inside of his arm like it was a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved. His brows descended heavily over his eyes, which were narrowed slightly. It wasn’t impossible to note that his hand shook a little when he moved his dropper, and perhaps because of this, it took him more than half a dozen tries before he was at all successful, and even then, he went much more slowly than Estella had, utterly fixated on the task to which he’d been set, however reluctantly.
He heaved a sigh of obvious relief when the dropper was empty, glancing up at the both of them. In the moment before he remembered to smooth over his expression, it was surprisingly soft, considering his usual attitude towards things. “I’m not doing another one.” He announced it decisively, but he moved with utmost delicacy when he put the kitten down in her box, and rubbed the top of her head with the pad of a finger.
“They’re… very soft, aren’t they?”
“They are.” Leon supposed he’d have to take their word for it, considering that he was wearing gloves. They managed to get all of the kittens fed, and he had to admit to an immense sense of relief when they did.
“They’re definitely not out of the woods yet,” Estella said sadly, petting them gently as they fell asleep, “but if we keep them warm and their blankets clean and feed them regularly, they have a fighting chance.” Leon knew her well enough to guess that she’d be quite insistent on helping with that, and frankly he was glad of it. She seemed to have a better idea of how to handle all of this than he did.
“Where did you learn to take care of kittens?” He knew the Lions taught a lot of skills, but this was definitely not one of them.
She glanced up at him and smiled. “Minrathous has a lot of strays,” she said. “I was in a situation like this once. One of the Chantry servants, Falon, taught me how to do this kind of thing. He was… very good with all sorts of animals.” He supposed that made some kind of sense.
“And you Cyrus? I don’t think I can look after them all by myself, and Estella likely won’t be able to, either.” He was much less certain of what the other Avenarius would do than he was of his sister. Generosity was not the first trait that naturally came to mind when one considered him, but he’d been surprisingly willing to make an attempt of this today, so perhaps there was yet a point in asking.
For a moment, Cyrus regarded him with a flat look, but then his eyes wandered down to the box, and the sleeping creatures within, and he shook his head. “I suppose.” He didn’t exactly sound pleased about it, but he wasn’t refusing. “But I make no promises.” His lips pursed, but whatever else he’d been thinking of saying, he kept to himself. His protest, such as it was, seemed a bit thin, but there was real reluctance in his expression.
Estella, at least, didn’t seem to believe that he was really all that upset about it, and she rolled her eyes at him. “It’ll give him a reason to leave his atelier. I’m all for it.”
Leon chuckled, then nodded slightly, rising to his feet. “All right then. I can keep them for the rest of today, but I have several meetings tomorrow, so I’ll bring them by your office, shall I?” She inclined her head by way of agreement, rising as well and taking her brother’s arm when he did the same.
“Sure. Let us know if you need help with them later tonight or something, though. And start working on names. They’ll need those eventually.” She half-smiled, then elbowed Cyrus. “This one gets to name the little girl, though. I saw that look on your face.”
“I've no idea what you're talking about. There was no look." Their lighthearted bickering carried on past Leon's office door, but faded as it closed behind them.