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He runs toward the rifts.
Cassandra isn’t sure whether the Herald of Andraste is simply overconfident, if he has a latent death wish, or if he’d simply been lying about not believing he’d been chosen by a higher power—for he runs toward the rifts like a man who believes himself protected. It is, she supposes, entirely possible he may also be mad.
She doesn’t think he’s mad. Not any more so than any of the rest of them, at any rate.
Oliver Trevelyan is, however, most definitely overconfident, or at least as far as it relates to his skill with a bow—though even Leliana has remarked on that, and she is not known to be terribly forgiving when evaluating archers. He has a gift for his weapon and he knows it, though it is not always a bad thing, to play to one’s strengths. But whether that overconfidence extends to his ability to close the rifts, Cassandra is less sure. Granted, such overconfidence would most likely result in him taking the rifts less seriously than he ought, but while the Herald is predisposed to levity (and too frequently does not take matters as seriously as he ought) this levity does not extend to the rifts.
When dark energy thrums through the air, thick and discordant, tinting the world green as his mark spits to life, the Herald’s jaw sets, his eyes narrow and harden, resembling pale chips of ice. He pulls his bow free from his back and, defiance and fury darkening his features, he runs. He is both swift and nimble, all coiled muscles and perfect control as he darts his body through the spaces that shift into and out of existence as demons move; he moves between and around them and, finding impossible safety in the middle of chaos, flings his arm upward as a ribbon of green fire pours from his palm, bathing him in light that plays across his face and turns his grey eyes green.
As he does, Cassandra Bull, and Varric work together to keep the Herald unharmed while the rift shifts, contracting and stretching, spitting demons out in waves.
There is a snap and a rush of foul air. Cassandra turns, the force of her body sending her shield slamming into an oozing rage demon—unnatural heat radiates through the metal—and once she can spare a glance, she sees the rift has contracted and Trevelyan stands below it, hand still alight as he sends arrow after unerring arrow into their foes, a whistle followed by a thunk that occasionally sets its target aflame. No hint of his characteristic levity shows itself in his expression now, not when he’s fighting, so unlike Varric or Bull who trade quips and banter in the thick of battle. His jaw is set, his brow furrowed and tight—and then, when the rift contracts again with a groan and a hiss, he raises his hand once more.
Cassandra cannot guess how he knows when exactly the rift will close, but there is no doubt he knows.Neither is there doubt the exercise is a painful one. His right hand curls to a fist, tighter and tighter as energy and pressure build and build, the air around them tightening until it is nearly unbearable, when finally the rift closes and shifts, releasing with a rush that makes her ears pop.
All is still and quiet once more.
Trevelyan shakes out his left hand, shoulders his bow, and takes a moment to examine and harvest a particularly lush cluster of elfroot before checking his map and re-examining their route. No longer is his face set like stone; once again he is affable and amiable, his limbs loose and his wit quick. He slides down rock faces and splashes through shallow creeks like a boy adventuring through the woods. When they face bandits or rogue mages—or rogue templars for that matter—there is no similar shift; he finds higher ground if it is available and, one by one, looses arrows into the fray. He does what needs to be done at the time it needs to be done. Trevelyan takes no pleasure in it, but neither is he overly troubled by the altercation. Common enough in those who have seen battle before; less common in the highborn not sent into military service. It is possible he is a mercenary of some sort and Cassandra considers the likelihood of that. It would explain his presence at the Conclave, at the very least.
It wouldn’t explain much else, but it would explain that.
They make camp just as the shadows are beginning to grow longer, and before long the smell of meat permeates the area. It’s dark by the time they’ve eaten and the remains have been cleared away. Clouds block most of the stars and much of the moon, and the fire seems to burn brighter for the darkness. The walls of Varric’s tent glow with lanternlight and from within comes the soft scratch of a pen across parchment. On the outskirts of camp the slow scrape of a whetstone across metal tells Cassandra where Bull is. Scouts and guards move quietly around the camp, some coming off watch, some going on. A cluster of young women sit together, whispering; given the looks one of them keeps sending the Herald, Cassandra can all too easily guess the topic of their conversation. Trevelyan is oblivious to the attention, focusing the whole of his concentration on adding fletching to fresh arrows. She watches his hands work; there is no hesitation in his movements—this is a task he’s done dozens if not hundreds of times. Cassandra’s never done the job herself—she’s never had any reason to—but she cannot help but marvel a bit at his hands with their long fingers. A noble’s hands. But she cannot imagine Oliver Trevelyan indulging in an indolent life, favoring perfumed oils and embroidered handkerchiefs like an Orlesian fop; he moves too well and does not balk at difficult terrain or long distances.
She wonders, for what isn’t the first time, about him.
“You’re staring, Seeker,” he murmurs, never looking up from his work.
Cassandra stiffens as her face warms. “I was not,” she retorts coolly. “I was watching.”
“Ah, yes,” he intones. “Watching. World of difference from staring.”
There are questions she wants to ask—has he always made his own arrows? Does he prefer it? Or is this an act of necessity because there is no way to tell when they’ll come across a merchant next?
Why do you run to the rifts, Oliver?
That is the question she truly wishes to ask. It doesn’t make sense to her that a man with a death wish—if that is the case, and she’s not entirely convinced it is—would put such care into making sure each arrow’s fletching is straight and perfectly aligned.
“Do you want to learn?” he asks, still intent upon his task.
His offer catches her off guard, and for a moment she cannot help but imagine it—sitting closer to him, his leg warm against hers, their heads bent together in conference over such a precise, exacting task, requiring so much patience when she often has so little. “What use would I have for such a skill?” she asks, her tone—and the question—sharper than she truly means it to be, as if that alone could hide the warmth creeping up her neck to her cheeks.
“I’m sure I haven’t the first idea, but you seemed interested, so I thought it polite to offer.” He holds up an arrow and peers down the shaft. Frowning, he adjusts the feather one way and then the other, until whatever he sees satisfies him. “I could teach you to pick a lock instead. You might find that skill to have more useful applications.”
“Applications of dubious legality, you mean. No thank you.”
He shrugs and picks up another shaft. “Have it your way, then.”
Why do you run to the rifts? The question burns on her tongue, but she cannot make herself ask it. She does not believe he would lie to her, but Cassandra isn’t sure she wants to know the truth, either.
Instead, a different question passes her lips. “Oliver.” Her use of his given name gives him pause, makes him look up. “Do you truly disbelieve you were chosen?”
For the first time that night, his sure fingers fumble. The shaft drops to his lap. He looks up, then down again, and in a span of mere seconds manages to smooth out the ripple of discomfiture, steady on his work once again. “I’ve already told you as much. The answer hasn’t changed.”
“I… do not understand why. You’ve already said you believe in the Maker.”
“Which is why I cannot possibly believe I was chosen,” he replies with exaggerated patience. Pale eyes flick up, then down again. “Because I believe the Maker and Andraste, as deities, both would have to be beings of sense—and, as beings of sense, would have to possess more sense than to choose me for anything having to with either of them. Unless, of course, the Maker does in fact have a sense of humor. In which case, yes, I could easily believe it.”
Irritation prickles at the nape of her neck. “You think it a joke?”
He snorts a humorless laugh. “I think if you asked anyone who actually knows me what they thought of me being hand-picked by Andraste to be Her Herald, they’d probably think you were joking.”
Before Cassandra can reply, there is a sudden intake of breath and Oliver’s fingers spasm again; the shaft tumbles again to his lap. When her eyes search his face she finds he’s gone pale, even in the firelight. His face is like chalk and his jaw is clenched and his hands are tight fists in his lap. The change is so sudden, so marked, that Cassandra’s pushed herself to her knees and has closed half the distance between them by the time she catches herself and stops.
“What is it?” she asks. “What is the matter?”
Slowly, carefully, his hands uncurl. He breathes, slowly, flexing his fingers once, then twice.
“It’s nothing,” he replies. And then, with slow, deliberate movements, he gathers his arrows and fletching materials together, wrapping them in oiled leather. And then, as if he realizes the absurdity his own falsehood, he gives himself a shake. “It’s nothing… I want to talk about,” he amends. “I’ll be fine.”
She wonders how true that is.
#
He doesn’t know why he runs toward the rifts.
He hates them, and that hate is a black, burning thing, lodged in his chest and twisting in his gut.
Oliver knows one’s close, even before they can see it, before they can hear its unnatural twang echo through the air: the mark on his hand wakes and brings with it the prickling burn of a hundred thousand fiery needles up his arm. But it is keen, lancing grief that propels his legs. There is very little he can do—really do—about this ache inside. He’s lost his sister, his best friend, confidante, co-conspirator. She is gone and these things, these thrice-damned bloody fucking rifts are the closest he can get right now to the reason she’s gone at all. So he sends arrow after arrow after arrow from his bow, and would do so until his quiver rattled empty, until his fingers bled.
Every arrow is a scream, a cry he won’t let himself loose.
He doesn’t think, not for a moment, that what he’s doing will help, will make him feel better. He’s not a child—and he’s lived long enough and made enough foolish mistakes to know raging against rifts and demons won’t ease anything. It will not bring his sister back. It will not provide any sort of balm for the rawness throughout. It will accomplish nothing but exhaustion. It will numb him, however temporarily, from all he’s unwilling to address.
Maker, but he hurts.
Another day in the Hinterlands, another rift—one that hovered creatively and infuriatingly over a waterfall—and Oliver, knowing perfectly well it could be days before finding a merchant, is sat before the campfire, replacing the arrows he was unable to salvage (as it turns out, Sera is right; anything shot into a rift goes and stays there). It is calming, steady work he enjoys; the precision of it quiets his mind. Dimly it occurs to him this might be marginally healthier than charging toward a demonic, demon-belching tear, but he shoos the inconvenient thought away with a shake of his head.
The longer he works, the more aware Oliver becomes of Cassandra’s eyes on him. He ignores it a while—as long as he can, at any rate. Of all the things he’s ever done to annoy and irritate his sister, most of them by design, Evangeline had always had the least patience for his ability to be deliberately obtuse. Or, as she’d been more fond of phrasing it, “playing the arse.”
He can feel it, somehow, in her gaze: the pressure of unasked questions tightening around them like an oncoming storm. So, eyes still on his work, he speaks first.
“You’re staring, Seeker.”
They neither of them use given names with any measure of regularity. Though, sometimes, he thinks he might like to. Cassandra wears duty like armor and there are moments when Oliver wonders what her eyes would look like not hardened around a frown. She is rigid, like a sword, and though he admires her strength, her devotion to a cause, he wonders if she ever stops—would ever stop—to bend, to breathe, to—
Ah, but his question, to say nothing of its tone, is not the sort to make her bend, nor was it designed to. Quite the contrary, in fact. Through his lashes and the firelight he catches the near imperceptible stutter in her movements as her mask is drawn down hard in place. Even a moment’s worth of regret still stings.
“I was not. I was watching.”
“Ah, yes.” He chooses his reply for its tenor and its ability to madden, honed over years of practice. “Watching. World of difference from staring.” Because if he irritates her thoroughly enough, she will let him be.
Do you want that? Push often enough, consistently enough, and you may just get your wish.
But that question is an inconvenient one he has no intention of answering.
Instead, Oliver glances up at Cassandra, and then down again. “Do you want to learn?” he asks lightly. And even as the question passes his lips, he’s not sure if his offer is a serious one or not. Either way, his traitorous imagination conjures such a scenario for him, and it’s only through years of practice that he manages not to snap the feather held so carefully between his fingers.
He cannot help but imagine her closer, picturing the complete concentration he’s sure she would devote to any task, any skill she wished to learn. Bloody hell, but he’s in trouble if she says yes. It’s easy enough to keep someone at arm’s length when they’re… at arm’s length.
“What use would I have for such a skill?”
And with her reply, Oliver breathes again. “I’m sure I haven’t the first idea,” he replies, the words coming more easily to him now, “but you sounded interested, so I thought it polite to offer.”
Oliver Charles Trevelyan, you are a liar. And of course his conscience would have to sound like Evangeline. Of course. Because that’s just his bloody luck.
He adjusts the fletching, exuding long-practiced nonchalance. “I could teach you to pick a lock instead,” he offers. “You might find that skill to have more practical applications.”
For a moment, his hands go still and that very scenario fills every crevice of his imagination. That settles it: his brain is a bastard traitor.
“Applications of dubious legality, you mean,” Cassandra replies, stiffly. “No, thank you.”
Relief clashes hard with disappointment. Oliver can’t quite banish the idea of it, though, his hands over hers, guiding the tools, explaining the nuances of a lock, of pins and springs and careful pressure—and the look on her face the very moment she managed the task herself. Because he has no doubt she would.
“Have it your way, then.” With that, the conversation is, thankfully, over and Oliver works in silence a while longer. But that silence is less relaxed now, and agitation itches beneath his skin.
When Cassandra breaks the silence again, she does so using his given name, which is more than sufficient to yank him sharply away from his task, his own tenuous concentration shattered—possibly beyond repair. In the orange glow, dark eyes meet his eyes unflinchingly. “Do you truly disbelieve you were chosen?”
It’s enough to make Oliver drop the sodding arrow. The shaft hits his lap and very nearly rolls to the ground before he rescues it, taking those scant seconds and the distraction they provide, to recollect his scattered savoir-faire. He takes a breath. Two. The feathers are out of alignment, and he takes a moment to readjust them. “I’ve already told you as much,” he answers. “Nothing’s changed.”
“I… do not understand why. You’ve already said you believe in the Maker.”
This is not a conversation he wants to have, and for a hundred reasons. Still, there is no point lying to Cassandra. First, he doesn’t want to—doesn’t like to. And second, he’s certain she’d see through any falsehood he tried throwing her way.
“Which is why I cannot possibly believe I was chosen.” He sends her a brief look, but it’s too difficult to meet her eyes just then; disappointment hovers in her furrowed brow, in the press of her lips. He turns his attention back to the arrow instead, grateful to have something to occupy his hands. “Because I believe the Maker and Andraste, as deities, both would have to be beings of sense—and, as beings of sense, would have to possess more sense than to choose me for anything having to with either of them.” He tips his head in mock thought. “Unless, of course, the Maker does in fact have a sense of humor. In which case, yes, I could easily believe it.”
“You think it a joke?”
No, he wants to say. No, I think there is nothing amusing whatsoever about any of this. But those words are too honest for him right now. Instead, he says, with a snort, “I think if you asked anyone who actually knows me what they thought of me being hand-picked by Andraste to be Her Herald, they’d probably think you were joking.”
Anyone but Evangeline, of course. The only one in the whole clan who’d ever seen through his smokescreens. She’d have believed it. And the little pest likely wouldn’t have quit until she’d made him believe it as well.
With that realization, the arrow falls from his fingers for the second time in minutes. Its absence takes a moment to register through the sudden pain shooting through his chest—oh, but it only begins at his chest—it travels up his neck and down his spine; blood drains from his face as grief tightens a path up his throat and his pulse roars in his ears.
Shit. Shit.
She’d have believed. In this. In me.
When Oliver looks up again, it’s to find Cassandra, pushed up onto her knees and only half the distance away she’d been before, hand outstretched. She’s watching him like he’s a feral dog she’s not sure she should touch.
He’s not completely sure she should, either.
Slowly, one by one, her fingers curl in and pulls her hand back as sits on her heels. “What is it?” This question is spoken more softly than her others. There’s a degree of uncertainty in her face and voice alike that doesn’t show itself often or easily. “What is the matter?”
For a moment, for a slim heartbeat of a moment, he wants to tell her. One breath. Two. And then the sensation passes. There are too many sad stories right now; there has been too much grief and pain and loss. What he has lost does not make him special.
It’s time to call it a night. He’s finished enough arrows, and once they’ve dried overnight he’ll have nearly a full quiver. It is enough. His hands want to shake, but he wills them to remain still and steady as he gathers his supplies, putting them away, methodically, one by one.
“It’s nothing,” Oliver says, gritting the words past the tightness in his throat. But it’s not nothing, and one glance at Cassandra’s face tells him she’s figured that out already.
Oliver dislikes lying to Cassandra.
He takes a breath in and lets it out slowly. Steadily. “It’s nothing I want to talk about,” he tells her, which is far closer to the truth. After a moment, she nods, accepting his words, even if she doesn’t like them.
“I’ll be fine,” he tells her.
But he’s worried that’s a lie, too.