Romulus didn't think he'd welcome the return of the cold, but that was before he'd spent any significant time in the Western Approach.
The Inquisition's forces skirted along the southern edge of Orlais, following the roads and keeping the Gamordan Peaks on their right until the mountains fell away entirely, and they evened out onto the Dales. They took smaller roads, which were perhaps slower going, but it would help them get into the southern Frostbacks quicker, and it was deemed best not to make a showing of force as they passed by such places as Val Firmin, Montsimmard, and Verchiel. It was unlikely the Orlesians understood the debt they had to the Inquisition yet. Because of their efforts, Corypheus had been denied a demon army, and would have to rely on his combined Venatori and Red Templar forces, which were fearsome enough already.
It was quite the blow they'd dealt him, and yet Romulus felt more unsettled than he had before leaving for the Approach. He was hardly an expert at sorting out his own feelings; any questioning from Khari or Zahra or Asala about what had happened in the Fade had been met with mostly avoidance on his part. He wasn't happy about that, especially when it was Khari he was avoiding speaking with. There were a few reasons for it, he supposed. It further confirmed his fraudulent status, the chance that brought him into contact with the orb that gave him his mark. Another reason to feel guilty for being duped by Anais. Not that the average soldier knew anything about it. For all they cared, he and Estella had just walked out of the impossible again. It was absurd.
Perhaps he felt so troubled because the Fade itself had not affected him as much as the others. Indeed, it was before the Fade, and its immediate aftermath, that haunted his memory. He'd have to figure out how to put words to it soon, before it ate at him any more.
For the moment, he kept to the head of the Inquisition's column, seeking relative isolation. Never far enough to get out of sight, and Lia and her scouts were always ahead of him of course, but far enough so as not to be in the thick of all the soldiers marching behind.
For a while, at least, he rode entirely undisturbed, but in time, another horse pulled up alongside his, and slowed pace to match. Cyrus of all people proved to be astride. How he kept his balance in the saddle with one leg crossed under him wasn't immediately obvious, but it seemed to be more comfortable, if the ease in his posture was anything to go by.
His expression didn't reflect it—if anything, he still looked vaguely troubled by something. But then, as far as Romulus could tell, he'd looked like that since they emerged from the Fade. His brow was a bit heavy, his mouth slightly downturned, but that was it. He shifted his attention to the side Romulus was on, exhaling in a manner that was almost a sigh.
“Do you have a moment, Romulus? I can sod off, if you prefer." The addendum seemed quite genuine, but so did the implied request.
For once, Romulus noticed that he didn't even slightly tense at Cyrus's approach. Not even subconsciously. It was a welcome thing, honestly, but not entirely surprising. They rarely put each other in close proximity on purpose, but somehow they ended up caught in feats of great and terrible magic on more than one occasion now. And whether they wanted it or not, they'd seen a decent amount of the other's vulnerabilities. Cyrus had seen Romulus practically cower before Chryseis when they met in Redcliffe. They'd both seen the way the visions of the future affected them. They'd both shared in the memory of the orphanage, the knowledge that they were both something very different from what they had evolved into. Romulus suspected he had more weaknesses, and that his were easier to discern, but he'd never thought Cyrus was without them. No one was.
He shook his head. "Stay. What do you need?"
“I wanted to thank you." The answer was immediate. It was as though Cyrus had been keeping it at the tip of his tongue for a while, and was eager to be rid of it. Or perhaps just to take it off his mind. A moment passed; his throat worked as he swallowed, perhaps gathering a bit more by way of thought before attempting to speak again.
His fingers fiddled absently with the dark mane of his horse. “I was not... at my best, in the Fade. None of us was, I suspect, but I at least should have been." His brow furrowed. “It is not unfamiliar to me. Not alien or strange. And yet I do not wish to confirm how I would have handled it, had I ended up alone in that place." It clearly wasn't an easy thing for him to admit; these words were much slower and more forced than the ones before. He fixed his eyes out on the path in front of them rather than anywhere in particular.
It was obvious that they had very different memories of that place. Romulus attached nothing in particular to it. It was a time when he was oblivious to the warning signs of where his life was heading. He might've ended up a Chantry brother or something, but instead he made enough of a nuisance of himself that he was made into a slave. The orphanage was a strange middle ground between the real life he should've had, the one with his actual family, and the one he was dealt, as a tool in service to a magister's whims.
"What about that place got to you?" he asked, a bit more abruptly than he'd intended. "If you don't mind me asking." He had no wish to pry too deeply, but Cyrus had been the one to come to him, so perhaps there was more he could help with. Romulus had seen the recollection the spirit put on of Cyrus's magic being discovered, of his imminent separation from his sister, but that was something every mage went through. Nor did it tear him forever from Estella, as he likely had feared as a child.
Cyrus diverted his eyes to his hands, picking at something near his knee. Loose thread, perhaps, or nothing at all. “It's a... reminder." He said the words slowly. “Of a time when I was a hairsbreadth from the worst fate my child's mind could conjure, too weak to do anything about it, and too much a coward to try." He yanked, and the thread snapped audibly, drifting away behind them.
“And then, of course, the inevitable reminder that the worst fate my child's mind could conjure might be better than what actually happened." He shook his head. “No child imagines he'll become what he hates most... but you know that just as well as I do, don't you?"
Romulus snorted softly, though the hint of a laugh was a dark one. Cyrus had done a great deal more thinking as a child than Romulus ever did. Romulus hadn't conjured up any fates for himself, hadn't bothered with any fears. He hadn't cared, until it was too late, and his fate had simply been decided for him. There wasn't anything for him to regret, really. His mind had never been as keen as a magister's, certainly not as a child. Too weak to do anything about his fate, too ignorant to see it coming, too stupid to understand what it would do to him. Cowardice, perhaps, was something he could understand, but his had only set in much later, along with his fears. Now he felt he had more than ever before.
"My fear is that I don't hate it." He could say the words all he wanted, but his actions had a way of speaking more loudly to him. Louder than Estella, louder than Zahra or Leon or Asala, louder than Khari even. Certainly louder than his own voice. "My fear is that I'll never be useful for anything else. Blade of a magister, now blade of the Inquisition. Still just a tool for killing. I don't want that to be all that I am, but it's what I'm good at. And the Inquisition doesn't seem to have room for me to be anything else right now." The Inquisition served different goals, obviously, and he killed different things, but time had a way of corrupting good things when they were consistently exposed to evil. Few people knew that better than Romulus.
“I'd be surprised if you hated it." Cyrus lifted his shoulders. “Hating what you did would have made it quite difficult to survive doing it, no?" He leaned forward automatically as their path began to slope upwards, taking them up a gentle incline. “But I've found that learning to hate is only about as difficult as learning to love. Perhaps easier, if you feel you should."
Romulus didn't know if he'd ever done either of those things. Hated or loved. At some point he had just deadened himself to it, refused to associate himself with all of it, but when the work Chryseis put him up to became his entire existence, there wasn't much left of himself. Maybe just a few quiet moments, rare occasions when he wasn't expected anywhere, where he could actually choose where to be in Minrathous. With a few people he hadn't been willing to call his friends, but in hindsight most certainly were. He wished he'd made more of those moments, rather than refusing to let them underneath the surface, the way he had before his defenses were broken down at Haven.
Cyrus glanced at Romulus a moment, then back ahead. “As for the Inquisition's business, well. It is inescapable that we'll need to kill plenty more things before we're through. But if your concern is finding room to do anything else... why not simply make the room? Seems to me this endeavor could be whatever the people at the front of it want it to be. And you're one of those people, are you not?"
"I shouldn't be," he answered, one thing he was relatively certain of. "Not after what I allowed to happen." He'd been comfortably in the shadows before he allowed Anais to drag him into the light, filling his mind with promises of purpose, a history to belong to. In many ways after that he made himself just as known as Estella was, only to cause harm to the Inquisition as a result. How were they expected to trust any decisions he made? How was he to trust himself?
Cyrus sighed, smiling in a rueful sort of way that was strongly reminiscent of an expression Estella often wore. “And the rest of us should? It hardly seems so. We're here by a series of accidents, most of us. Myself included. Stellulam included, to take someone in a more analogous position. History will likely remember this all as a smooth, cohesive tale of everyone being where they were meant to be when they were meant to be there, but it's never really as neat as that." He scoffed softly under his breath.
“Some of the best things in life are accidents. Make of it what you can. Trust others if you feel you can't trust yourself yet. No one ever stepped into something this important fully prepared for it. Ask the Commander if you think I'm wrong. Or Stellulam. Or anyone you like. I guarantee you they don't have all the answers yet, either. I certainly don't." He shook his head slightly, voice softening. “Everyone doubts. Even those of us who seem to have things most under control. I used to think that was a terrible inconvenience at best. Now, though..." He trailed off.
Romulus kicked his heels into his horse a little. He'd slowed down more than he intended to, and the voice of the soldiers behind him were becoming louder. "Thanks, Cyrus. It's... I'll work on it."
The Inquisition's forces skirted along the southern edge of Orlais, following the roads and keeping the Gamordan Peaks on their right until the mountains fell away entirely, and they evened out onto the Dales. They took smaller roads, which were perhaps slower going, but it would help them get into the southern Frostbacks quicker, and it was deemed best not to make a showing of force as they passed by such places as Val Firmin, Montsimmard, and Verchiel. It was unlikely the Orlesians understood the debt they had to the Inquisition yet. Because of their efforts, Corypheus had been denied a demon army, and would have to rely on his combined Venatori and Red Templar forces, which were fearsome enough already.
It was quite the blow they'd dealt him, and yet Romulus felt more unsettled than he had before leaving for the Approach. He was hardly an expert at sorting out his own feelings; any questioning from Khari or Zahra or Asala about what had happened in the Fade had been met with mostly avoidance on his part. He wasn't happy about that, especially when it was Khari he was avoiding speaking with. There were a few reasons for it, he supposed. It further confirmed his fraudulent status, the chance that brought him into contact with the orb that gave him his mark. Another reason to feel guilty for being duped by Anais. Not that the average soldier knew anything about it. For all they cared, he and Estella had just walked out of the impossible again. It was absurd.
Perhaps he felt so troubled because the Fade itself had not affected him as much as the others. Indeed, it was before the Fade, and its immediate aftermath, that haunted his memory. He'd have to figure out how to put words to it soon, before it ate at him any more.
For the moment, he kept to the head of the Inquisition's column, seeking relative isolation. Never far enough to get out of sight, and Lia and her scouts were always ahead of him of course, but far enough so as not to be in the thick of all the soldiers marching behind.
For a while, at least, he rode entirely undisturbed, but in time, another horse pulled up alongside his, and slowed pace to match. Cyrus of all people proved to be astride. How he kept his balance in the saddle with one leg crossed under him wasn't immediately obvious, but it seemed to be more comfortable, if the ease in his posture was anything to go by.
His expression didn't reflect it—if anything, he still looked vaguely troubled by something. But then, as far as Romulus could tell, he'd looked like that since they emerged from the Fade. His brow was a bit heavy, his mouth slightly downturned, but that was it. He shifted his attention to the side Romulus was on, exhaling in a manner that was almost a sigh.
“Do you have a moment, Romulus? I can sod off, if you prefer." The addendum seemed quite genuine, but so did the implied request.
For once, Romulus noticed that he didn't even slightly tense at Cyrus's approach. Not even subconsciously. It was a welcome thing, honestly, but not entirely surprising. They rarely put each other in close proximity on purpose, but somehow they ended up caught in feats of great and terrible magic on more than one occasion now. And whether they wanted it or not, they'd seen a decent amount of the other's vulnerabilities. Cyrus had seen Romulus practically cower before Chryseis when they met in Redcliffe. They'd both seen the way the visions of the future affected them. They'd both shared in the memory of the orphanage, the knowledge that they were both something very different from what they had evolved into. Romulus suspected he had more weaknesses, and that his were easier to discern, but he'd never thought Cyrus was without them. No one was.
He shook his head. "Stay. What do you need?"
“I wanted to thank you." The answer was immediate. It was as though Cyrus had been keeping it at the tip of his tongue for a while, and was eager to be rid of it. Or perhaps just to take it off his mind. A moment passed; his throat worked as he swallowed, perhaps gathering a bit more by way of thought before attempting to speak again.
His fingers fiddled absently with the dark mane of his horse. “I was not... at my best, in the Fade. None of us was, I suspect, but I at least should have been." His brow furrowed. “It is not unfamiliar to me. Not alien or strange. And yet I do not wish to confirm how I would have handled it, had I ended up alone in that place." It clearly wasn't an easy thing for him to admit; these words were much slower and more forced than the ones before. He fixed his eyes out on the path in front of them rather than anywhere in particular.
It was obvious that they had very different memories of that place. Romulus attached nothing in particular to it. It was a time when he was oblivious to the warning signs of where his life was heading. He might've ended up a Chantry brother or something, but instead he made enough of a nuisance of himself that he was made into a slave. The orphanage was a strange middle ground between the real life he should've had, the one with his actual family, and the one he was dealt, as a tool in service to a magister's whims.
"What about that place got to you?" he asked, a bit more abruptly than he'd intended. "If you don't mind me asking." He had no wish to pry too deeply, but Cyrus had been the one to come to him, so perhaps there was more he could help with. Romulus had seen the recollection the spirit put on of Cyrus's magic being discovered, of his imminent separation from his sister, but that was something every mage went through. Nor did it tear him forever from Estella, as he likely had feared as a child.
Cyrus diverted his eyes to his hands, picking at something near his knee. Loose thread, perhaps, or nothing at all. “It's a... reminder." He said the words slowly. “Of a time when I was a hairsbreadth from the worst fate my child's mind could conjure, too weak to do anything about it, and too much a coward to try." He yanked, and the thread snapped audibly, drifting away behind them.
“And then, of course, the inevitable reminder that the worst fate my child's mind could conjure might be better than what actually happened." He shook his head. “No child imagines he'll become what he hates most... but you know that just as well as I do, don't you?"
Romulus snorted softly, though the hint of a laugh was a dark one. Cyrus had done a great deal more thinking as a child than Romulus ever did. Romulus hadn't conjured up any fates for himself, hadn't bothered with any fears. He hadn't cared, until it was too late, and his fate had simply been decided for him. There wasn't anything for him to regret, really. His mind had never been as keen as a magister's, certainly not as a child. Too weak to do anything about his fate, too ignorant to see it coming, too stupid to understand what it would do to him. Cowardice, perhaps, was something he could understand, but his had only set in much later, along with his fears. Now he felt he had more than ever before.
"My fear is that I don't hate it." He could say the words all he wanted, but his actions had a way of speaking more loudly to him. Louder than Estella, louder than Zahra or Leon or Asala, louder than Khari even. Certainly louder than his own voice. "My fear is that I'll never be useful for anything else. Blade of a magister, now blade of the Inquisition. Still just a tool for killing. I don't want that to be all that I am, but it's what I'm good at. And the Inquisition doesn't seem to have room for me to be anything else right now." The Inquisition served different goals, obviously, and he killed different things, but time had a way of corrupting good things when they were consistently exposed to evil. Few people knew that better than Romulus.
“I'd be surprised if you hated it." Cyrus lifted his shoulders. “Hating what you did would have made it quite difficult to survive doing it, no?" He leaned forward automatically as their path began to slope upwards, taking them up a gentle incline. “But I've found that learning to hate is only about as difficult as learning to love. Perhaps easier, if you feel you should."
Romulus didn't know if he'd ever done either of those things. Hated or loved. At some point he had just deadened himself to it, refused to associate himself with all of it, but when the work Chryseis put him up to became his entire existence, there wasn't much left of himself. Maybe just a few quiet moments, rare occasions when he wasn't expected anywhere, where he could actually choose where to be in Minrathous. With a few people he hadn't been willing to call his friends, but in hindsight most certainly were. He wished he'd made more of those moments, rather than refusing to let them underneath the surface, the way he had before his defenses were broken down at Haven.
Cyrus glanced at Romulus a moment, then back ahead. “As for the Inquisition's business, well. It is inescapable that we'll need to kill plenty more things before we're through. But if your concern is finding room to do anything else... why not simply make the room? Seems to me this endeavor could be whatever the people at the front of it want it to be. And you're one of those people, are you not?"
"I shouldn't be," he answered, one thing he was relatively certain of. "Not after what I allowed to happen." He'd been comfortably in the shadows before he allowed Anais to drag him into the light, filling his mind with promises of purpose, a history to belong to. In many ways after that he made himself just as known as Estella was, only to cause harm to the Inquisition as a result. How were they expected to trust any decisions he made? How was he to trust himself?
Cyrus sighed, smiling in a rueful sort of way that was strongly reminiscent of an expression Estella often wore. “And the rest of us should? It hardly seems so. We're here by a series of accidents, most of us. Myself included. Stellulam included, to take someone in a more analogous position. History will likely remember this all as a smooth, cohesive tale of everyone being where they were meant to be when they were meant to be there, but it's never really as neat as that." He scoffed softly under his breath.
“Some of the best things in life are accidents. Make of it what you can. Trust others if you feel you can't trust yourself yet. No one ever stepped into something this important fully prepared for it. Ask the Commander if you think I'm wrong. Or Stellulam. Or anyone you like. I guarantee you they don't have all the answers yet, either. I certainly don't." He shook his head slightly, voice softening. “Everyone doubts. Even those of us who seem to have things most under control. I used to think that was a terrible inconvenience at best. Now, though..." He trailed off.
Romulus kicked his heels into his horse a little. He'd slowed down more than he intended to, and the voice of the soldiers behind him were becoming louder. "Thanks, Cyrus. It's... I'll work on it."