Work in Progress
Leliana had found him standing there before the sun slipped a ruddy finger over the horizon and across the waters, his eyes fixated northward as the thin lace of white grew thick and lumbering. The wind had been in his hair, dark wavy curls writhing as the salty air grasped and tugged, flowing like some veil of night speckled with the starlight of sea-spray. The tails of his long black coat danced lightly along the wooden panels of the ship, the sleeves drawn back past his elbows, revealing the white cotton shirt beneath, dabbled with gray from splashing water. A fine embroidery silver latticed across them, in swirling vines blossoming with forked leaves; trailing and lost as they reached the cuffed coat-arms. Standing there, frozen, with only that shifting wind grasping at his hair and his coat, one would think he was a statue with all the shades of living men.
A thought flitted through her mind, a soft voice she had nearly forgotten. One bounded in warmth and fitted for smiles. The tones dragged scrapping daggers deep across her chest, leaving a burning ache at her heart. He always seemed like a statue, didn’t he?
Yes, she admitted, the words a long drawl, wary to leave the iron chains confining her mind. Always wanted to draw the first watch. Amayian Trevelyan had already been an eager sort, in actions to say the least. In everything else, well…When it came to words, those seemed lost to him.
The gentle voice chimed, laughing. Remember when we tried to have him tell an Orlesian tale.
Something close to a twitch tickled the corner of her mouth. Oh, yes. She recalled that one. A poor attempt, in truth. He had all the story-telling ability of a boulder, all stone and truths. Zevran had not allowed him to live it down, even if the poor boy had no idea why the ending - And then he died - was a terrible conclusion. There was no fervor in those stories, even if she could tell that he was told the story faithfully - perhaps too faithfully for her taste, but it was an amusing one still. And he had been so quiet then. Shy was not quite the right word. Detached, withdrawn, even dour. But not surly. Unfriendly, but not grumpy or mean-spirited. Perhaps when I teased him a little about a jest that soared well over his head, but there was nothing angry in his voice. Only neat confusion. Always neat, that one.
Leliana was not sure which voices spoke, the Sister or the Nightingale. The tones mangled to one, one fond, the other edged close to hardness. But the memories stirred, quiet at first before rushing like a cliff-climbing wave cast by the sea. Violet and blue skies jeweled in stars; amber flames twirling with the sudden sputters of a racing song; a lanky boy with thick curls that touched the ends of his ears but grew as time went on, almost shaggy. But neatness, despite it all—neatness in his words, in his precise, measured actions, even for a boy of nineteen. No, Amayian Trevelyan was never mean-spirited, even when warranted. He was not much of anything, to be true—neither happy or sad, angry or shamed. When Leliana dug her fingers deep enough, hints could be caught, dragged slowly out to be examined. Most had been a glimmer of a blush tracing the outlines of faint dark freckles on olive skin, a quietness in the voice when she leaned close and fixed the positioning of his fingers as she taught him how to strum a lyre properly, where to settle it in his grasp, how to hear the wrongness of a certain plucked note. And the blush was the greatest struggle of all not to tease him. Perhaps she had feared that if she did so, he would settle—never cast away—the lyre onto the ground, thank her for the lesson, and pull away from everything Leliana had tried so hard to bring out, and return to the icy greetings that marked his tone when he first joined Enasalin and Ralia and the others. But he never did. He simply took it, knowing or unknowing what the words meant in truth. As if it was to be expected, as if he could ascertain some points that he could use. The cold voice traced a dagger along her spine, slow, methodical. To use what? To serve. And when service did finally come, what did he do? He fled, like some coward. There was no mockingness in that tone from the Nightingale—from Leliana’s self—but merely the truth. Amayian had been so…eager…to follow whatever Enasalin or the others had him to do. But when Leliana had needed him, truly needed him, she saw for a moment hesitation, and soon after the confusion in that hesitation, in those guileless eyes that were as smooth and clear as glass in a mirror. And then he turned, and ran. Ran from Leliana. Ran from Enasalin.
