Dust Motes

Among the scholars and the stacks, Nell did her best not to stand out.

At mid-day, the room was alight with people: academics in long, jewel-toned robes hustling about with their noses in the air, apprentices straining to follow them with their arms full of heavy-looking volumes. The sun streamed in through the front door as Nell slipped through. She took notice of the dust motes that swirled up from the floor at the disturbance; they glittered in the light before vanishing into the bustle of the room. Nobody looked up at her entrance. Excellent, Nell thought. Like the dust motes, the note of anxiety that had risen in her chest swirled away into the bustle; she could linger among the books and not be noticed.

But first, Nell realized, there was a job to be done. She paused at the entrance, shuffling off to the side when a particularly distraught-looking apprentice bumped into her. The anxiety came back at the realization that she would have to bother someone; she wore her fingers over the straps of her rucksack, mulling over the decision. There were already two dark circles in the leather where she’d been wearing it through; her anxious habit was beginning to catch up to her. 

She should ask someone where she was supposed to drop off deliveries, but they all looked so busy. The maps in question poked out of the top of her rucksack, encased in specially-made metal tubes engraved with Nell’s signature. She just had to go for it, didn’t she? Don’t think about it, she told herself - just do it.

 “Excuse me,” she blurted, flagging down the next person who passed. “Can you tell me where-” 

All the color left Nell’s face all at once. Of all the people to flag down, in all of the places.

Ruth meandered his way through the refectory, posture slouched forwards and hands delved into the pockets of his many layers. Light waves of gold hung around his shoulders, he was going to have Megara cut it, but she was still mad at him. The whole ‘eye’ thing had really pissed her off. He’d scoff. Like she had anything to be mad about. He was the one who had to wear an eyepatch.

His satchel bounced gently against his side as he walked, a new tome no doubt weighing it down for the cheeky red-headed archivist to take a look at. Maybe take a closer look at himself again, before perusing the new mystery Ruth had found. A grin curled at the corner of his lips when he thought back to their little romp in the back office, but it soon quelled into a grimace at what had happened in between visits. Yet another lecture, no doubt. Fuck.

Taking a wander around first before seeking out Faelyn, if the ancient were even around to annoy, Ruth attempted to sober himself up. A hand rubbed over his face, threading into his hair to brush back as he noticed there were significantly more people here than last time, finding his head twisting and turning at the different faces. Some he recognised from his Inquisition days, others he’d maybe track down or enquire around about. While fools treasured gold, the wise understood that knowledge was power and Ruth was nothing but nosy about people who worked in the largest repository of elvhen history.

Truthfully, he should have expected her to turn up. Perhaps not at that moment, but one day she, or any of the clan, was due to turn up in Arlathan and the past would yet again slap him in the face. Her voice had his steps falter, stutter to a halt before the tension rolled up his back into his shoulders. A cold dread gripped his stomach as on autopilot he turned, finding Nell.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

A dumb, blurted out question, but this was Ruth, caught off guard with the grip of suspicion rolling over his surprise.

Ruth. Of all the people to run into - of all the people to ask for directions from, it had to be him. Nell had never been lucky, she supposed. The fact that this would happen was just par for the course. 

He was so different, she thought, even excusing the eyepatch. He stood a little taller than he had when she’d been dragging him back to the clan. His gait was a little prouder. Even his accent when he spoke was different. He had lost some of the Dalish lilt to the consonants and vowels, replaced by something she couldn’t identify. 

Was he different, she wondered, or had she changed?

Nell took stock of herself. She didn’t think she’d changed much, but that was probably inaccurate. Physically, she was about the same: there was perpetually ink and paint stained beneath her nails, her hair was always tied in a bun to keep it out of her face. But where Ruth rose up over her, Nell shrunk. In her time away from the Keeper, she’d recovered from some of the effects of their shitty childhood. But since going back (and then escaping once more), she’d lost some of the recovery she’d painstakingly clawed back. With Ruth in front of her, the effect was palpable. 

Hot shame flooded her chest as he turned to her. She tore her eyes away from him, looking at the boots of a passing scholar. Before, Nell might’ve snapped back at him and told him she had every right to be here, thank you very much. But now, in the wake of her mistakes, she took a small step back and wished she was anywhere else but here. 

“I didn’t know I would find you here,” she said, trying to get in front of an accusation before it happened. “One of the scholars commissioned a map. I’m just trying to deliver it.” Nell chanced a glance up at him. The byproduct of all those years ago, Venehn, looked more like his father than her; the blonde hair, the big eyes. 

..And that, she realized, was probably something Ruth deserved to know about. She bit down on the information, watching to see if he’d immediately turn away rather than entertain any conversation with her.

If Ruth had a shred of luck, it ended the day his mother died. Life, and often gravity it seemed, enjoyed making the elf its bitch sometimes. First his eye, now her. If his father popped up, Ruth was certain he was going to vomit, the way his stomach flipped and clenched all at once. Hands made fists inside of his pockets, one gripping around a set of keys to dissuade the anger rising quickly on its heels.

A quick glance of her told him little. There were the usual, expected things, the ink, the way she tied her hair back, the little wisps that.. Nope. Don’t go there.. Those things were the norm, but something about the way her eyes dimmed, her gaze shifting, caught his attention. She had at least the decency to look away, but the lack of a fight had him suddenly second guessing.

A brow arched as she spoke. In a dumbstruck sort of way, he flatly replied. “This has the biggest collection of elvhen history in all of Thedas. Where else would I go?” Though now it had attracted people from his past, wonderful, as if losing an eye wasn’t enough this year. He was grateful, though she hadn’t laughed at his newfound self yet. His eyes narrowed some as she shrunk, his expression attempted to draw into an impassive stance, regaining his footing in this.

His look was about the only thing he shared with their Keeper. Rut’theran took after Amara, his mother. The clan’s healer and its kindest soul before her death. There was a softness there, under all his sass and deviance, that he revealed to few then, and even fewer now. He’d been out in the world since a teen, wandered the length and breadth of Thedas. Much had changed about him, but only as much as Ruth allowed was ever on display. He’d allowed Nell close once, and then watched as that trust burned.

With a deep sigh, Ruth however, relented. His eyes would roll slightly and a part of himself cursed his need to understand her being here, and why now of all moments? His fucking curiosity, it was going to get him killed one day. “Fine. Follow me.”

The anger was written across the lines of Ruth’s body. She could see the tension in his shoulders even from this distance. She remembered how it felt to put her hands on those shoulders and knead the knots out, punctuated by the sound of him sighing and relaxing into her hands. 

She threw the thought out as quickly as it came to her. It felt too intimate, too comfortable for the circumstances she’d made for herself. She resisted the urge to shuffle beneath his eyes, forcing herself to stay stone still. 

“In general, I don’t spend time wondering where you are,” she replied. It could’ve been sarcastic, but there was no malice in it; her tone was matter-of-fact. “That seemed like the best decision for the both of us.” 

Nell didn’t want to fight him. She didn’t even want to talk to him, really, but they had a shared responsibility that she’d never had a chance to tell him about. Her own relationship with him was one thing, but Ruth deserved to have the option to know Ven. If she told him about their child, would he even believe her? He’d walked out on her before, when Ven had just been a whisper in her belly. She didn’t blame him for that one. In fact, Nell seemed to believe that the mistakes and burdens of their former relationship were hers to carry, and hers alone. 

Although she couldn’t - wouldn’t - call Ven her son, she wouldn’t let him suffer from the cascading effects of her mistakes. 

Ruth agreed to take her to her delivery. She nodded and followed after him, but she held herself at a distance. She watched the scholars pass them, wishing that she could disappear into the whirl of fabric and dust left in their wake. 

She was quiet for a long time, following after Ruth. She wore her thumbs into the straps of her pack, mulling over her own anxiety until it spoke for her. 

“Is your eye okay?”

He had a right to his anger. The sole purpose of her even joining the Inquisition, as far as he was concerned, was to get to him. Lie. Watch as he fell, head over heels, grew attached. There’d been a moment when he’d entertained vows, and then his eyes landed on a man he detested most, and he was back there again. A scared, grieving, lonely child. Terrified of the man who called himself Father. And she knew every waking, traumatic moment of it? Maybe, maybe not, but he wouldn’t leave her alone here.

Her tit for his tat still pulled a hint of a grin, though. She hadn’t lost all her bites then. “Really? Because I remember giving you my best work.” A sliver of malice did slip into his tone this time, along with the straightening of his back. There were plenty of things about him that were faulty. His character was.. complicated, but he certainly fucked the elvhen pantheon out of her wee dalish mind.

Walking ahead, Ruth gripped tighter around the set of keys, burning a hole in his pocket. Swallowing back the urge to just leave her in a random hallway and let her find her own way was more difficult, but then he wouldn’t know if this was a one off or a regular occurrence. “Just so you know, this place is kind of my thing. I’ve got a good in, around here, and I don’t need you… complicating it.” Again his shoulder would shrug awkwardly, though relaxed at the maintained distance.

Glancing over at her, Ruth steeled himself. There had been nights he’d gotten lost in them, dreamed of them and regardless of time, still seemed to be haunted by them. How apt, she’d pick that particular thing to talk about first? The chuckle that fell was hollow yet in the brief lull after her query, he decided to oblige. Another thing that would amuse his father no doubt, yet another indication of his son’s weakness. “Just perfect, see?” A hand swept the fabric and hair covering the clean slash across the orbit, the edges still in the process of healing.

“Fortunately, I am a terrific healer… though I suppose some credit goes to Megara. It’s gone, completely. Not that its dampened my spirit much.” Lies. Sight was one thing, but depth perception as a surgeon was going to take some adjustment. Along with the other baggage he had to contend with.

Ruth did have a right to his anger, but Nell was still trying to get her head wrapped around her own anger. 

She was mad at him: for leaving her, for acting like the Keeper hadn’t hurt her for years, too, for refusing to hear her out when she was at her most vulnerable. She just couldn’t find the words for it yet. In her own failure to voice her anger, she’d turned it on herself. She had lain awake for months after Ven was born, staring at the ceiling and wondering how she’d dug her grave so deep. Even now, she was flighty with those who were affectionate with her and she couldn’t stay in one place for too long, lest someone ask her about something more than the weather. 

Ruth spat one of his little sly insults at her, like if the reminder that she’d slept with him was so terrible that she’d shrivel up or something. Nell didn’t have the energy for it. She looked up at him, something between exasperation and hurt playing across her face. She didn’t respond. Ruth could have his little barbs if that would make him feel better. 

She sighed to herself and kept moving - best not give him the satisfaction. He went on, perhaps because he hadn’t gotten a reaction the first time, to tell her not to fuck things up for him. And then there was anger rising up in Nell’s chest: a deep-wrought feeling of offense that she would ‘complicate it’. Nell forced herself to take a deep breath; it was all she could do to keep from whirling on his stupid blonde head. 

“I didn’t come here to insult you or ruin your reputation or whatever you think it is I’m doing,” she tried to keep her tone even, but there was irritation simmering beneath the words. The anger got ahead of her, simmering into a full-blown boil. She kept going. “I came to give these people their map and leave. I haven’t seen or talked to the Keeper since I was seven months pregnant, so you can lay off.” 

Nell forced another deep breath, looking at the path ahead, at the sconces on the walls - anything but him. She did glance at him when he gestured to his eye, albeit it was a quick heartbeat of a glance. That definitely didn’t look “perfect”, but she wasn’t a healer and he and Meg were both terrific healers. Distantly, Nell felt bad about it. It was a terrible injury. She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost her sight, but it was dampened by her own irritation, even in the pique of excitement she felt at the prospect that Meg was around. 

“I’m sorry about your eye,” she said through her teeth, in a voice that clearly said she was definitely not sorry about anything.

It went beyond her. Ruth’s anger was rooted with the actions and words of a man who, from the healers' first cry as a newborn, despised his son. No-one had been in his corner. Then, when she had come to Skyhold, he had begun to relax with their shared upbringing. Her betrayal had been a brutal reminder and blow that his tender nature had drawn back behind walls. Only the walls provided the ample darkness for his demons to feed on.

In the years since, avoiding attachment and retaining his freedom were front and centre. His mouth landed him in more hot water than before, yet granted, it could also get him out of it and into the pants of some. Really, it was the reaction his words could garner that he relished in, craved.

Yet she gave him nothing. His brows shrugged it off, but inside, inside, she’d caught his full attention. Paranoia said this was another setup, only he knew this particular honey bear. His second bout was far more successful in ruffling her feathers. Smug amusement spread, wondering if she’d keep this reunion civil or not, but no, again her explanation bore the similar story. “Ah yes, the phantom spawn, which you’ve conveniently left at home. Pity.” He supposed there were some who’d be fooled by such a scheme, but not he.

Though, Megara had made the most valid point. He could have verified it himself if he hadn’t been so enraged at the time.

In an effort to have her out of here and back into the dark places of his mind, Ruth made a connection. One he'd surely burn for. “You actually haven’t told me his name.” A deliberate pause followed. “For these maps. Who, you are actually delivering to?” His path stopped. “We could be going in completely the wrong direction.” Turning his body to face her approach, brows raised expectantly before a pause, mind dwelling on the habits and whereabouts of the scholars he knew of and then reorientating himself.

The sarcasm and lack of genuine sorrow pulled a scoff of a laugh. His hands moved of their own accord to find tobacco and papers on his person, expertly rolling one to find its home in the corner of his mouth. “Yes. Well. No good deed goes unpunished. Literally.”

The phantom spawn?! He actually, truly thought she’d lied about being pregnant, as if he hadn’t watched the dark circles appear beneath her eyes after countless sleepless nights, filled with anxiety over what happened next. Apparently, she was smarter than even she realized; the weight she’d lost from being unable to eat, the fact that she’d burst into tears whenever anyone so much as mentioned children - it was all fake, according to Ruth. 

She was a worse person than she thought, apparently. 

And he looked so smug about it. Another wave of anger rose up in her chest, furious at him for the self-righteous bullshit he pulled - as if he were any better than her. She’d lied, sure, but he had abandoned her to the mercy of their Keeper and for seven months, she had experienced everything that mercy had to offer. She had the scars to show for it, too. 

“It seems like you left your empathy at home, too. Pity.” 

Nell realized that even if she told him about Ven now, he wouldn’t believe her. She was pretty sure she had some sketches of him in her pack, too, but she couldn’t imagine that would sway him either. Ruth wanted - perhaps needed - to believe the version of reality he’d created in his head. 

And slowly, in increments so small that she couldn’t have pinpointed where they began and ended, Nell began to give up on the idea of telling Ruth anything at all. 

The thought should’ve made her angrier, but it just made her sad. They’d loved each other so much once. She didn’t even recognize him now. She supposed she rarely recognized herself these days, though. The anger in her faded, replaced by some mixture of grief, shame, and nostalgia. 

“Rand Al’Thor?” She said, pausing a healthy distance away from him when he did. “His assistant called him the Dragon, I don’t know much else about him.” 

Nell watched him pull out his tobacco and papers. He’d done that before, sure, but he’d never been so casual about it. The degree of familiarity was concerning; Nell was surprised that she actually was a little concerned. 

“And what good deed were you performing?” She asked, but she was sizing him up. Her eyes scanned him clinically, wondering if his recreational habits had become something more. He did look sort of sick in the way he did when things got rough, when there were more injuries than beds, when Nell had gotten hurt while out on expeditions...

It was easier to believe everything that came out of her mouth was tainted with some falsehood. So much suspicion had flown around during those times. Solas. His little spies and traitors who’d thwarted the Inquisition. No-one was above reproach back then. The work was arduous, but they’d managed… On the return to Skyhold though, shit had hit the fan.

“Past times when my mouth would run, you’d come swinging for my head,” he’d snicker. “Shame. You were spicier before.” And it was there in his mind before he could stop it. His head elsewhere and her hands pulling, tugging, instead of swinging her little fists. Shaking his head, Ruth cleared his throat, cursing his own weakness and trying to keep on task.

“Dragon?” Ruth made a face, eye rolling. “More like Drag On. Old geezer can send a whole auditorium to sleep with his long-winded bullshit.” The old elf was fairly knowledgeable, but gods, it was like getting blood from a stone how round about and long his answers could be. Fortunately, they had been going in the right direction to find him, or at least his office, so the two continued down a long corridor in their mutual discomfort.

The more they talked, the more solitude Ruth sought. The stick of tobacco served as a brief distraction, the end burning into life at the spark of an ember brought to life by a snap of his fingers. After a drag, and her accusatory question, he’d chuckle. “I was actually a gentleman. Helped a lass avoid a nasty fall, was actually doing my job and taking a look at her when her… colleague? … Not sure what they were, are, but anyways, he didn’t take much liking to my assistance of the lady.”

“It’s the last time I help out the Grey Wardens, anyway.” Absently, his hand brushed over the injury, pushing back strands of hair in the process. He’d lost weight in the years since they’d crossed paths. Dark circles seemed engrained on his face, while the craving from something stronger than a cigarette grew increasingly more demanding. A shoulder would roll awkwardly in an attempt to quell the growing anxiety and urge to just… leave. Glancing over, he’d catch her lingering look. “...What?”

Spicier, he said, and then went on to complain about dragons and Grey Wardens or whatever. She hated this. She hated that he was beating around the bush about what had happened between them, that he was acting like this was his kingdom and she was just some peasant in it. He turned to her, eyeing her with the same kind of curiosity he’d used to offer when he wanted to know what was on her mind. Before, she’d found it charming. Now, it just pissed her off. 

Her anger had been brewing beneath the surface, but it boiled over at that one look. 

“Spicier?!” 

Nell stopped entirely, whirling on Ruth with whatever “spice” she had left. She was pissed. She was pissed at him for being so nonchalant about this, she was pissed at herself for not walking away from him the second she saw him, she was pissed about his stupid little rolling papers. Her feelings about the whole ordeal immediately kicked up into an inferno of anger; Ruth was the center of it. 

“You know what, forget this. I’ll hire a messenger to make the delivery,” she said, beginning to walk back in the direction they’d come from. 

Abruptly, feeling the need to have the last word, Nell turned mid-exit. 

“Did it ever occur to you that other people matter, too, Ruth!? He’s four, by the way, and he has your stupid hair and your dad tried to kill us both after you left. Not that it matters, because all you care about is yourself, but if you ever decide to grow the fuck u-” 

Nell remembered herself mid-rant. She stopped suddenly, forcing herself to take a deep, deep breath. 

“I’m leaving,” she huffed. “Goodbye.”

Nell turned to go.

He was too busy thinking that around the next corner another trap lay waiting. Years had passed when the first had occurred, enough time to pass for them to think he’d lower his guard. These were all thoughts of a paranoid mind perhaps, but Ruth had cause, returning to their clan would be a death sentence, not of mortal flesh but certainly of spirit. His temper, the white hot rage Ruth had for his father would bubble over and the result would be the same. A great deal of shouting and the high chance of violence. The outcome of which, even he was uncertain of, but the healer would try his best.

Unaware that the woman’s own limit had been reached, he blinked as it boiled over. Eyes followed her return along the corridor, making no moves to trail after her. She was not his responsibility anymore, why should he? Though apparently she wasn’t done entertaining his words or attitude.

The first question had him scoffing with a breath. Of course people mattered, just some were fucking ignorant and stupid and the universe in it’s infinite wisdom allowed them to continue and worse, populate Thedas with even more of their kind. They were also the ones he could charge a fortune for simple healing, so in some cases he lucked out. But then she harked on again about their “child,” and, wait..

“He.. what?,” after a moment, his head would shake. Disbelief that she could be so foolish. “What the hell, Nell? Why the fuck would you trust a wor-.” Was she insane? Removing the cigarette from his mouth, he’d gesture, anger coiling up his back. “You knew what he was like before? Did that fact not enter into your pretty little plan, if you failed?”

But she was trying to flee now. “Oooh no, not so fast.” If this was a set up, he was going to put it down right now. “You’re here now, might as well see it through.” Making the few steps towards her, Ruth took her wrist, tugging her gently back along the way they’d come. He’d suppress the sparks that tingled up along his arm by touching her, taking a deep drag and then discarding the remains underfoot. “You don’t just get to waltz back in, drop your bomb and then bolt when I get snippy.”

Suspicion was still etched across his face as he’d half dragged her towards Al’Thor’s office. “You can’t blame me, for what you did. I never fucking lied. Not about anything so fucking basic.” Reaching the door, he’d knock, but knowing the old geezer would take an age to answer he remained where he was, watching her. “You had plenty time and opportunity to tell me but didn’t.”