The past few days had been restless ones for Rom.
Of all the injured, he was perhaps the most intact, and so he was left to watch as Asala and Chryseis and even Bastian coordinated their efforts to keep everyone alive. There had been close calls. None came closer to death than Amalia, though somehow she'd managed to pull through. Chryseis knew healing well, though she rarely had any desire to perform it. He was certain she didn't have it here, either, but there was something about the dedication to her work that struck Rom. She had been assigned to save Amalia's life, and assist with the others where needed. Once Chryseis was given a task, she was loath to fail it, to leave it unfinished. Her dedication and drive were frightful in some ways, and utterly remarkable in others.
And it occurred to him that if he had used that arrow in her to tear her open and let her bleed out, thus supposedly freeing himself from her presence, he would have doomed Amalia by extension, or perhaps one of the others. That blood would've been on his hands. And the more he thought of it, the more he knew Khari was right. As she usually was. Death was not the way he was going to free himself from memories of slavery, of submission.
While she worked to heal, there was nothing to be done. They had managed to recover a large amount of papers after making it inside Marcus's hideout, but they would take a great deal of time to parse through, and Rom was not the ideal candidate for that. The others needed rest, though Khari was difficult to keep from action as ever, and Zee had avoided most of the injuries the others had suffered as well. What followed was a tense few days of waiting, and constant work by the healers in the house, to keep those most grievously injured alive. Eventually, it became clear that they would, in fact, survive, though the two among them that most desired the Venatori leader's death had not been able to claim it. Their situation was not his, he knew. Unlike Chryseis, Marcus would torment them in the physical realm as well as in their minds, if he wasn't dealt with. He felt guilty about not being able to help them, but that time had passed.
On the fifth day, Chryseis finally spent some of her waking hours away from the patients, who reportedly were not fond of her presence, and often asked her to leave. That Rom had no trouble believing. It gave him a chance to finally speak with her around sunset, when she took her drink out onto the balcony of Bastian's manor, with a wonderful view of the sunset and the glittering water far below.
"I imagine you want to speak to me," she said when she noticed his approach. Her voice was unusually quiet, perhaps just from tiredness. "I imagine this is also a first-time occurrence."
He remained standing, preferring not to sit next to her. "Want and need aren't the same thing."
"I suppose not. Out with it, then."
That was the first step down. Now for the rest. Rom crossed his arms, trying to figure out how he wanted to say it. "I'm trying to have a different life now. The Inquisition has given me a chance for it. It's just... every time I start to think I'm moving forward, I remember you. And I remember the terrible things that I've done for you. And I remember just what it was like to live here in your shadow, as your blade, doing anything and everything that you asked of me."
The way he put voice to the last words he spoke there implied that he was referring to some of the things Chryseis asked of him that did not require any violence. She noticed quite easily. "If this is about you and that insufferable elf woman, you have nothing to fear from me. Do as you please."
"It's not..." He exhaled, frustrated by her interpretation of things. "That's not what this is about. Maybe a little, but this isn't about any one thing. It's about moving on from our pasts."
"Our pasts?"
"I've killed people for you," he continued. "I've beaten and intimidated people for you. I've tortured for you, spied for you, destroyed lives for you, caused collateral damage, hurt people that had done you no wrong. I've been able to get this far because I've come to accept that even if that's who I was, it's not who I have to be always. It's painful at times, but I feel now that I'm getting close to who I really am, who I used to be before I ever was a slave."
She seemed confused by this. "And yet you claim the shadow of the memories hangs over you. Are you a new man or are you not?"
"I can't just shed everything all at once, it doesn't work like that. But piece by piece I'm trying, and it's working. There's just been one missing piece, and it's here. It's you."
He'd inched closer a little, lowering his voice with some uncertainty. It had taken him a few days to come around to this, that this was the way he wanted to solve things. Chryseis obviously wasn't seeing it yet. Another first occurrence, that for once she didn't see right through him. "I don't understand. If you want me to fix you somehow, I can't do that. I don't know what you—"
"I don't need you to fix me," he interrupted. "I want to fix you."
It might've been the first thing he'd ever said that caught her fully by surprise. She narrowed her eyes at him, as though trying to figure out if he might be an impostor, wearing a mask of Rom's face. "Excuse me?"
He expected this reaction, and had prepared what to say. "Something happened to us, when we were younger. Something we had no control over. Many somethings, in your case, but a few things in particular." He didn't need to spell them out for her. Her father trained her a certain way, taught her the same cruel path he tried to instill in Cyrus. In Chryseis, it took. But she fell in love, the kind that made cruelty and cold logical practicality seem irrelevant, and for a time she approached happiness. Then he was taken from her, and she was taken by rage and hate and her ability to use her power to destroy those that harmed her.
"You did things," he said, "things that offered you brief satisfaction at the cost of pieces of your humanity, pieces of who you had the potential to be. And you started to feel like you had nothing to look forward to or fight for, so you took up his dreams and hopes for your country, what he died for, and made it your goal. But you only knew cruel ways of bringing it to reality. While trying to rebuild Tevinter, you tore down yourself."
She'd stopped looking at him, instead taking a drink and staring out at the sea. He took it as a good sign, and pressed on. "It doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to be that way. You're one of the most intelligent, driven, determined, powerful people I know. You can find a way to be who you want to be, and still fight for the goal we set out for. Believe me when I say that there is nothing in this life more worthwhile."
She stared a moment longer, taking a long drink and wincing slightly at the burn as it went down her throat. "I remember a time not so long ago," she finally said, "when you could barely string a sentence together around me."
She left it at that, leaving Rom confused. He stood in silence, waiting for her to continue, but she did not. At last his patience ran out. "Chryseis...?"
"I'd like to be alone," she said, standing. "I have much to think about." She walked past him and stepped back inside, leaving him alone on the balcony. He couldn't be sure, but he felt as though he might've reached her. Something inside of her, that he'd seen as a adolescent, in private moments on her father's estate. In the brief period of marriage she enjoyed, and never again after. Maybe she would again now. And if he was responsible for her changing, even a little, then he knew he did the right thing.
It wasn't more than a couple minutes later that Khari appeared, her footfalls considerably softer than usual behind him. Understandable, considering that she wasn't wearing any shoes. No doubt it was a great deal warmer in Minrathous than she was used to, and like several of the others, she'd made concessions for the heat. Her shirt, loose and white, was sleeveless, and she'd taken to rolling her pant legs to her knees.
She walked right up to the railing and took it in both hands, hoisting herself up so she was sitting on the banister, facing inwards, swinging her feet freely in the air. “Just passed Chryseis in the hallway." She tilted her head at him. “Can't say I expected to see that look on her face at any point." Her tone invited elaboration, if he was inclined to give it.
He grinned, just a little. "I'm not sure how well it went, but... I did something. And I think it might just move things in the right direction." Rom wore sandals, and they flapped softly on his way over to the railing next to her. "It felt good to do something, after... well." He shrugged, feeling a little heavier. "After the fight. Hard to feel like it wasn't a defeat."
“I get what you mean." Khari shrugged, offering half a grin of her own. “On the other hand... you and Asala smashed up that golem pretty well, so there's a win for the books, right? And here I thought I was the reckless one." The smile grew until it encompassed her entire expression—apparently not even the lingering sense of loss was enough to dampen her mood for all that long.
For a moment, she looked over her shoulder, back out at Minrathous stained in the colors of sunset. They made her hair look like fire. “You know... it's kinda different from how I expected. The towers are pretty obnoxious, but I figured they'd be a bit more sinister or something." She wrinkled her nose. “Guess I was imagining it as 'the place that really sucked for some friends of mine' more than anything. It's pretty, though. Smells nicer than most cities, with all the water nearby."
He snorted at that. "Up here, maybe. You haven't seen where Brand would drag me to drink on coin he stole." He smiled at the thought, but in all honesty, it was foul down there. The streets stunk of piss everywhere, and worse sometimes, and the drinks were so watered down they were hardly recognizable. Well, Rom liked to think it was water they were thinned with, and nothing else. But it was something he'd enjoyed making Rom do. Buying something hard earned, he said, as though stealing was honest work. Rom appreciated it, even if he rarely said it back then. A brief chance to get away from it all, even if it felt like the city was burying him in the process.
"There are good people here, and others less so." He turned sideways, leaning his hip on the railing. "Same as any city, or any clan. They've been at war too long for their own good, but at this point I don't think it's something they can escape. Tends to sour them a little." Chryseis was perhaps the prime example of that. "And it did suck sometimes, but... despite everything, I'm happy with where it's landed me."
He grinned again at her, a little slyly, letting it reach his eyes. "You know I wouldn't have done this without you, right? As always. One of these days I'll figure out what the right thing is without you needing to be awesome and tell me."
Khari laughed, leaning back a little on the railing but in no apparent danger of overbalancing. “Well, if I have my way, I'm always going to be at least this awesome, so I guess you've got some catching up to do." Her expression softened a little, though, and for once she just looked happy. No edge of wryness or aggression or anything else—happiness in its simplest form. “But you know... I've got this feeling you're already well on the way. We're gonna win, you and I. The good in us both."
He smiled at her, and loved the way she looked. Despite the loss, the way things hadn't turned out perfectly. They never did, but there was still a way forward. Always, a way forward. "One more thing," he said. "Let me see if I can remember how you said it..."
He never remembered actually feeling confident about these things before, but somehow he did now. His smile morphed back to a grin, somewhat teasing in nature. "If, uh... I was maybe considering kissing you right now, would you absolutely be more than okay with that?"
For a moment, Khari looked quite surprised, eyes widening and grin faltering, but she recovered swiftly, leaning forward slightly where she sat. “I'm gonna make fun of you for flirting with me later, but right now?" She arched an eyebrow. “Absolutely."
The genuine attraction was causing his heart to beat much more quickly than normal, but Rom was surehanded in this, and didn't fumble or hesitate. He smiled as he slid a hand to the back of her neck, tracing his thumb along her jaw, twining fingers through her thick hair. He leaned in and kissed her, letting his other hand find her waist. One of her hands bunched in the front of his shirt, the other scrubbing blunt fingernails over his nape. She actually wasn't overly forceful or clumsy about it, either—though in this as all things, her enthusiasm was readily apparent.
"Oh, shit," came an excited elf's voice from inside, almost startling Rom enough to make him jump. He reluctantly pulled away from Khari and turned aggressive eyes on Brand, eavesdropping from just inside the still open door. Sneaky little shit. "Dreams have become reality."
Rom took an angry step towards him, enough to get a yelp out of him, and he darted off at a very swift walk. Rom scratched the back of his head for a moment, before an idea occurred to him, and he looked back at Khari.
"How much d'you think it would cost us to buy a slave from Bastian?"
“How about... one not-dead son?"
Of all the injured, he was perhaps the most intact, and so he was left to watch as Asala and Chryseis and even Bastian coordinated their efforts to keep everyone alive. There had been close calls. None came closer to death than Amalia, though somehow she'd managed to pull through. Chryseis knew healing well, though she rarely had any desire to perform it. He was certain she didn't have it here, either, but there was something about the dedication to her work that struck Rom. She had been assigned to save Amalia's life, and assist with the others where needed. Once Chryseis was given a task, she was loath to fail it, to leave it unfinished. Her dedication and drive were frightful in some ways, and utterly remarkable in others.
And it occurred to him that if he had used that arrow in her to tear her open and let her bleed out, thus supposedly freeing himself from her presence, he would have doomed Amalia by extension, or perhaps one of the others. That blood would've been on his hands. And the more he thought of it, the more he knew Khari was right. As she usually was. Death was not the way he was going to free himself from memories of slavery, of submission.
While she worked to heal, there was nothing to be done. They had managed to recover a large amount of papers after making it inside Marcus's hideout, but they would take a great deal of time to parse through, and Rom was not the ideal candidate for that. The others needed rest, though Khari was difficult to keep from action as ever, and Zee had avoided most of the injuries the others had suffered as well. What followed was a tense few days of waiting, and constant work by the healers in the house, to keep those most grievously injured alive. Eventually, it became clear that they would, in fact, survive, though the two among them that most desired the Venatori leader's death had not been able to claim it. Their situation was not his, he knew. Unlike Chryseis, Marcus would torment them in the physical realm as well as in their minds, if he wasn't dealt with. He felt guilty about not being able to help them, but that time had passed.
On the fifth day, Chryseis finally spent some of her waking hours away from the patients, who reportedly were not fond of her presence, and often asked her to leave. That Rom had no trouble believing. It gave him a chance to finally speak with her around sunset, when she took her drink out onto the balcony of Bastian's manor, with a wonderful view of the sunset and the glittering water far below.
"I imagine you want to speak to me," she said when she noticed his approach. Her voice was unusually quiet, perhaps just from tiredness. "I imagine this is also a first-time occurrence."
He remained standing, preferring not to sit next to her. "Want and need aren't the same thing."
"I suppose not. Out with it, then."
That was the first step down. Now for the rest. Rom crossed his arms, trying to figure out how he wanted to say it. "I'm trying to have a different life now. The Inquisition has given me a chance for it. It's just... every time I start to think I'm moving forward, I remember you. And I remember the terrible things that I've done for you. And I remember just what it was like to live here in your shadow, as your blade, doing anything and everything that you asked of me."
The way he put voice to the last words he spoke there implied that he was referring to some of the things Chryseis asked of him that did not require any violence. She noticed quite easily. "If this is about you and that insufferable elf woman, you have nothing to fear from me. Do as you please."
"It's not..." He exhaled, frustrated by her interpretation of things. "That's not what this is about. Maybe a little, but this isn't about any one thing. It's about moving on from our pasts."
"Our pasts?"
"I've killed people for you," he continued. "I've beaten and intimidated people for you. I've tortured for you, spied for you, destroyed lives for you, caused collateral damage, hurt people that had done you no wrong. I've been able to get this far because I've come to accept that even if that's who I was, it's not who I have to be always. It's painful at times, but I feel now that I'm getting close to who I really am, who I used to be before I ever was a slave."
She seemed confused by this. "And yet you claim the shadow of the memories hangs over you. Are you a new man or are you not?"
"I can't just shed everything all at once, it doesn't work like that. But piece by piece I'm trying, and it's working. There's just been one missing piece, and it's here. It's you."
He'd inched closer a little, lowering his voice with some uncertainty. It had taken him a few days to come around to this, that this was the way he wanted to solve things. Chryseis obviously wasn't seeing it yet. Another first occurrence, that for once she didn't see right through him. "I don't understand. If you want me to fix you somehow, I can't do that. I don't know what you—"
"I don't need you to fix me," he interrupted. "I want to fix you."
It might've been the first thing he'd ever said that caught her fully by surprise. She narrowed her eyes at him, as though trying to figure out if he might be an impostor, wearing a mask of Rom's face. "Excuse me?"
He expected this reaction, and had prepared what to say. "Something happened to us, when we were younger. Something we had no control over. Many somethings, in your case, but a few things in particular." He didn't need to spell them out for her. Her father trained her a certain way, taught her the same cruel path he tried to instill in Cyrus. In Chryseis, it took. But she fell in love, the kind that made cruelty and cold logical practicality seem irrelevant, and for a time she approached happiness. Then he was taken from her, and she was taken by rage and hate and her ability to use her power to destroy those that harmed her.
"You did things," he said, "things that offered you brief satisfaction at the cost of pieces of your humanity, pieces of who you had the potential to be. And you started to feel like you had nothing to look forward to or fight for, so you took up his dreams and hopes for your country, what he died for, and made it your goal. But you only knew cruel ways of bringing it to reality. While trying to rebuild Tevinter, you tore down yourself."
She'd stopped looking at him, instead taking a drink and staring out at the sea. He took it as a good sign, and pressed on. "It doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to be that way. You're one of the most intelligent, driven, determined, powerful people I know. You can find a way to be who you want to be, and still fight for the goal we set out for. Believe me when I say that there is nothing in this life more worthwhile."
She stared a moment longer, taking a long drink and wincing slightly at the burn as it went down her throat. "I remember a time not so long ago," she finally said, "when you could barely string a sentence together around me."
She left it at that, leaving Rom confused. He stood in silence, waiting for her to continue, but she did not. At last his patience ran out. "Chryseis...?"
"I'd like to be alone," she said, standing. "I have much to think about." She walked past him and stepped back inside, leaving him alone on the balcony. He couldn't be sure, but he felt as though he might've reached her. Something inside of her, that he'd seen as a adolescent, in private moments on her father's estate. In the brief period of marriage she enjoyed, and never again after. Maybe she would again now. And if he was responsible for her changing, even a little, then he knew he did the right thing.
It wasn't more than a couple minutes later that Khari appeared, her footfalls considerably softer than usual behind him. Understandable, considering that she wasn't wearing any shoes. No doubt it was a great deal warmer in Minrathous than she was used to, and like several of the others, she'd made concessions for the heat. Her shirt, loose and white, was sleeveless, and she'd taken to rolling her pant legs to her knees.
She walked right up to the railing and took it in both hands, hoisting herself up so she was sitting on the banister, facing inwards, swinging her feet freely in the air. “Just passed Chryseis in the hallway." She tilted her head at him. “Can't say I expected to see that look on her face at any point." Her tone invited elaboration, if he was inclined to give it.
He grinned, just a little. "I'm not sure how well it went, but... I did something. And I think it might just move things in the right direction." Rom wore sandals, and they flapped softly on his way over to the railing next to her. "It felt good to do something, after... well." He shrugged, feeling a little heavier. "After the fight. Hard to feel like it wasn't a defeat."
“I get what you mean." Khari shrugged, offering half a grin of her own. “On the other hand... you and Asala smashed up that golem pretty well, so there's a win for the books, right? And here I thought I was the reckless one." The smile grew until it encompassed her entire expression—apparently not even the lingering sense of loss was enough to dampen her mood for all that long.
For a moment, she looked over her shoulder, back out at Minrathous stained in the colors of sunset. They made her hair look like fire. “You know... it's kinda different from how I expected. The towers are pretty obnoxious, but I figured they'd be a bit more sinister or something." She wrinkled her nose. “Guess I was imagining it as 'the place that really sucked for some friends of mine' more than anything. It's pretty, though. Smells nicer than most cities, with all the water nearby."
He snorted at that. "Up here, maybe. You haven't seen where Brand would drag me to drink on coin he stole." He smiled at the thought, but in all honesty, it was foul down there. The streets stunk of piss everywhere, and worse sometimes, and the drinks were so watered down they were hardly recognizable. Well, Rom liked to think it was water they were thinned with, and nothing else. But it was something he'd enjoyed making Rom do. Buying something hard earned, he said, as though stealing was honest work. Rom appreciated it, even if he rarely said it back then. A brief chance to get away from it all, even if it felt like the city was burying him in the process.
"There are good people here, and others less so." He turned sideways, leaning his hip on the railing. "Same as any city, or any clan. They've been at war too long for their own good, but at this point I don't think it's something they can escape. Tends to sour them a little." Chryseis was perhaps the prime example of that. "And it did suck sometimes, but... despite everything, I'm happy with where it's landed me."
He grinned again at her, a little slyly, letting it reach his eyes. "You know I wouldn't have done this without you, right? As always. One of these days I'll figure out what the right thing is without you needing to be awesome and tell me."
Khari laughed, leaning back a little on the railing but in no apparent danger of overbalancing. “Well, if I have my way, I'm always going to be at least this awesome, so I guess you've got some catching up to do." Her expression softened a little, though, and for once she just looked happy. No edge of wryness or aggression or anything else—happiness in its simplest form. “But you know... I've got this feeling you're already well on the way. We're gonna win, you and I. The good in us both."
He smiled at her, and loved the way she looked. Despite the loss, the way things hadn't turned out perfectly. They never did, but there was still a way forward. Always, a way forward. "One more thing," he said. "Let me see if I can remember how you said it..."
He never remembered actually feeling confident about these things before, but somehow he did now. His smile morphed back to a grin, somewhat teasing in nature. "If, uh... I was maybe considering kissing you right now, would you absolutely be more than okay with that?"
For a moment, Khari looked quite surprised, eyes widening and grin faltering, but she recovered swiftly, leaning forward slightly where she sat. “I'm gonna make fun of you for flirting with me later, but right now?" She arched an eyebrow. “Absolutely."
The genuine attraction was causing his heart to beat much more quickly than normal, but Rom was surehanded in this, and didn't fumble or hesitate. He smiled as he slid a hand to the back of her neck, tracing his thumb along her jaw, twining fingers through her thick hair. He leaned in and kissed her, letting his other hand find her waist. One of her hands bunched in the front of his shirt, the other scrubbing blunt fingernails over his nape. She actually wasn't overly forceful or clumsy about it, either—though in this as all things, her enthusiasm was readily apparent.
"Oh, shit," came an excited elf's voice from inside, almost startling Rom enough to make him jump. He reluctantly pulled away from Khari and turned aggressive eyes on Brand, eavesdropping from just inside the still open door. Sneaky little shit. "Dreams have become reality."
Rom took an angry step towards him, enough to get a yelp out of him, and he darted off at a very swift walk. Rom scratched the back of his head for a moment, before an idea occurred to him, and he looked back at Khari.
"How much d'you think it would cost us to buy a slave from Bastian?"
“How about... one not-dead son?"