aberratic | 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕

There had been a hint of deja vu about having to walk back to Kirkwall.

This time is, without a doubt, more comfortable than the desperate stumble with Gela after they'd escaped the envy demons. He has intact boots, for one thing, along with warm clothes, a shield and a sword. A few coins, even, though he's rationed them to keep them fed. They've been sleeping rough, but both of them have done that before.

He had such a particular mix of good and bad luck, at the Cauldron. He can't help but feeling the good luck keenly, especially given what had happened to Teren. Vanya and Pamplemousse had been strafed by enemy fire, yes, but she got them out of the battle and to the ground in one piece. It's all too easy to picture the counterfactual, given the chaos and the way the griffons had been particularly targeted.

Still, for all that good luck got them out of the Cauldron, they had no access to the nearest eluvian, with enemy troops between them and that path back to Kirkwall. He might have chanced stealth alone, but not with a griffon to think of. And once she got them to the ground, Pamplemousse was clearly in no condition for further flying. He'd splinted her wing and bandaged his arm (a cut, bloody but not deep, from the same attack that hit Pamplemousse's wing). It was during this process that he discovered the fire they'd took had ripped open one of his saddlebags and he'd lost half of his supplies — sending crystal inclusive.

There had been nothing for it but to walk back. He mostly led Pamplemousse, unwilling to risk jostling her wing with his leg even if they stayed on the ground, so their pace was set by his walking speed. One or two farmers were bold enough to let Vanya ride in the cart with Pamplemousse padding behind, but most were afraid of a griffon spooking their horses. They're mainly restricted to the pace he can set himself.

But even a long walk has an end. He gets Pamplemousse settled in the eyrie, inevitably seeing a few of his comrades along the way. It's clear, and probably unsurprising, that they were given up for dead. He'll go out to the houseboat tomorrow, probably. He'll get a new sending crystal soon, too. But it's late, and that can wait until morning.

But one thing can't wait, actually. And someone he asks can confirm that Ness hasn't left her office that evening.

When he knocks, it's quiet, but it isn't hesitant.

She almost doesn't hear the knock—might not have in truth, but for that it came in the middle of a sniffling pause for breath. The unexpected interruption startles a sob from her, but she doesn't allow herself the time to worry it's been heard.

How long has she been standing like this, weeping alone in the dark? How much work could she have been doing, instead of sitting paralyzed by missing someone she has only the barest claim to mourn in the first place?

"Just—sorry," she calls through the door, and then hears her own voice and winces, clearing her throat to dislodge the tear-thickness. "Just a moment, sorry."

It's a few moments before Ness opens the door. When she does, her eyes aren't on her caller at first, back over her shoulder to prestidigitate all the candles in the room lit at once. She's made an effort to mask what she'd been caught in the middle of, but the evidence is still all over her face: wet, glassy eyes, bulb of her nose red from sniffling and cheeks splotchy from being scrubbed of tears. Her voice scratches when she speaks.

"I apologize, I was—indisposed, what can I—"

She stops mid-sentence with hardly a sound, just a sharp gasp of air as she blinks up at Vanya, frozen in place.

There is, almost certainly, some gentler way to break the news that he isn't dead after all. But he hadn't wanted to stop and think about it and make her wait longer in it.

That said, the state of her face immediately distracts him from whatever words he was about to try. Without pausing to think about it, he reaches out to catch one treacherous tear track she hasn't scrubbed away. It smears under his thumb. "Ennaris, you're unwell." His fingers are warm and solid and evidence that he really is there, standing in front of her. There's even something perhaps a bit absurd about his immediate concern for her when he was the one who has been assumed dead for weeks.

For all that, the concern is clearly genuine and has pushed any other strategy for beginning the conversation clean out of his head.

There have been many moments in Ennaris' short life that have marked before and after—where her reality tilted around her and she has had to accept a new normal with hardly a breath to adjust. There was the moment she realized her mother had left her behind in Candlekeep, and she would not be coming back—the moment she turned in her wagon seat and found she could no longer see the spires of the library behind her—the moment she woke in Thedas, everything and everyone she knew forever beyond her reach—

and now there is this, Vanya returned from the grave in front of her. She reaches dazedly up for his hand, curling hers around it. Feels the warmth and the solidity of his skin under her palm. Turns her cheek into the cup of his palm, and feels the warmth there too. Holds her breath, like he'll spook and disappear if she so much as breathes wrong.

It feels—unreal. Like she's watching this scene from outside herself. He can't be here, despite all the combined sense that tells her otherwise.

"I'm alright," she says, quiet, not taking her eyes off of Vanya, "except I think I may be so tired I've begun to hallucinate, because you're dead."

His look immediately shifts to sympathy, though he doesn't pull his hand away. "I'm not, I swear to you I'm not." His tone is quiet, as if not to startle her further. "It was all a mess, Pamplemousse was injured badly enough she couldn't fly, and I lost the saddle bag that had the sending crystal in it. I had to walk most of the way back, I couldn't find a secure way to send any word."

Nor, as he'd berated himself for privately, had he memorized the eluvian map. He might have had a shortcut if he'd known to head for it, but without the information, there was little choice other than walking home from the Anderfels. It had taken longer than he might have liked.

Of course, it had occurred to him people might assume the worst under the circumstances. But it is a bit different, now, seeing the reaction in person.

"I see," she murmurs, even though she doesn't at all, "that makes sense," even though it doesn't. It could make sense, it will make sense, when she's had a night to sleep on it—but right now it feels as if her mind is a wagon wheel stuck in a muddy rut, trying to push forward yet getting dragged back into the muck with every shove. Vanya is alive. Less than a minute ago, he was dead. Only one of these things can be true.

He hasn't disappeared, or warped into a demon. He sounds like himself. Has the same warm eyes, the same dear hands.

Something doesn't have to make sense to be true.

Ennaris exhales a shuddering breath and steps away from his hand—forward, not back. She wraps her arm around his torso in a clinging embrace, curling her fist into the back of his shirt. With her ear pressed to his chest, she can hear the steady beat of his heart, feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. Her throat works, thick with tears for the second time tonight. There's so much she should say—is Pamplemousse alright, is he alright, who else has he told that he's back, Gwenaëlle should know—but all that she can find the words for is

"I missed you, I missed you, Vanya—"

He immediately wraps her in his arms without hesitation. "It's alright," he murmurs into her hair. "It's alright, I'm here now." He had missed her too, of course, but he hadn't had any reason to fear she was gone. (Or, at least, any more than one always did with rifters. It's a thought to put away for the present.)

He gives her a few moments before suggesting: "Why don't we sit down?" Not an indication that he plans to separate from her, but perhaps an acknowledgement that this might be a long enough reunion that later she might be glad to be having it somewhere other than the doorway of her office. And he is arriving from what must have been an extremely long walk, for what it's worth.

Despite that she nods, despite that she can very clearly see the sense in moving this reunion out of the hallway... It still takes a long moment for Ennaris to release Vanya. Even when she does, she doesn't let him go entirely, trailing her hand along his arm, elbow to wrist, unwilling to let go just yet.

"Of course, you must be so tired," she says, "Come into the office, I have—well. There's a seat, anyway."

Her hand finally falls away from his wrist long enough to open the door to the office, but she reaches back for him once inside, as though he might have somehow disappeared in the time they weren't touching.

The Archives-Special Acquisitions office is in a state of what might generously be called "organized chaos", at least on her side—the desk she leads him to is piled high with paperwork, with only a small space in front of the seat left clear for working. A plate of food sits, untouched, on top of one of the piles. Behind the desk is a threadbare chaise, a blanket draped over it, and she encourages Vanya to sit on it.

"Are you alright?" she asks, brushing her thumb over his knuckles, "are you hungry? I have," she says, turning to look at the desk, "I got dinner today, I can warm it, it'll be—but it hasn't gone off, it's just been a couple hours—"

𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕

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