Caught You
There’s a half-second of confusion as you watch Sera skyrocket upwards into the sky before you realize she’s not going up, you’re going down, you’re going down fast and far and then your body finally reacts. The first thing you do is scream—and you continue to scream the entire time, admittedly. Maybe not the most noble way to die, screaming and hurtling through the air, but you’ve never been one to go out with quiet dignity.
You twist in the air like a cat, reaching towards the wall in the hopes of finding something, anything, to slow your descent. You don’t know if a body can survive a fifty foot drop and you don’t want to be the one to test those limits.
Your bandages catch and shred, your fingers quickly bloody and tear against the sharp stones of the wall as you try to stop yourself. Then you catch on something more sturdy. Your hands are grasping before it even registers to you what you’re gripping: one of the long banners hanging from the walls of Skyhold. Thank the Maker for the Inquisitor’s arrogance and sense of fashion, hanging these useless things up. Not so useless anymore! But it’s not designed to catch a frantic, screaming woman falling from great heights. It, of course, begins to tear and give way.
You hear shouting below, and when you look up you see Sera, who looks to be screaming nearly as loudly as you are. You make the mistake of glancing down. Oooooh Maker that is still a really, really long way. The banner rips again, loudly, and you jolt down another foot, causing the pitch of your screams to rise.
Shit! Fuck! You have to think… if only you knew that stupid spell of Banal’ras’s but you were never any good at it and—
The banner rips and finally gives way.
Embarrassingly, you suspect your last thought will be “this is a really stupid way to die.”
You twist yourself in the air again, giving up on breaking your fall by smearing blood against the walls. Maybe if you fall properly, you’ll just break your legs and not your spine— The ground is rushing towards you— You brace yourself for the impact, close your eyes, and—
You feel a jolt, but it’s all over your body, akin to times you’ve fallen out of trees into large banks of snow. Your eyes flash open, and you see the ground—still a good ten feet below.
You’re floating.
Your first instinct is to check your aura—had you cast something without realizing, in your panic? Shit. Fuck! Everyone’s staring, oh god, oh no, no no no, you should have just hit the ground, what have you done? But your aura is still tight in your stomach, a tense, terrified knot with barely any power to it.
Then…?
You see everyone’s eyes going up above you as you lower slowly onto the ground. No one moves to catch you. In fact, they all back away as you thud gently on the ground. The magic still grips you tightly for a few seconds before vanishing. You suddenly feel very heavy, the weightless sensation utterly gone. You crumple, but more out of your body’s unwillingness to hold itself up than anything else.
You roll onto your back and stare upwards. Sure enough, you see not one figure on the balcony far above, but two—Sera and Solas.
You can’t see Solas’s expression from here.
You’re really glad.
Sera disappears from sight, but Solas remains. You can tell he’s looking down at you. Sera’s probably running across the ramparts to get down into the courtyard even now
Did you seriously just fall off a fucking wall and almost die?
No, you reason with yourself, you probably wouldn’t have died. You had slowed your fall with the banner and the ground is relatively soft where you landed. You would probably have broken your legs, but it wouldn’t have killed you. Probably.
Wow, you really need to learn a levitation spell. Soon. Honestly, you should have ages ago, but there aren’t a lot of sheer fifty foot drops with nothing to grab onto in Val Royeaux. You’d always figured in a pinch you could step through the fade like you used to, but it turns out it’s super impossible to focus well enough for that when hurtling to your death.
A shadow falls over you, and you’re expecting Sera, but it’s actually a Templar, judging by the armor. You panic almost immediately and sit straight up. You’re almost amazed when that sudden movement doesn’t hurt–your brain is still informing you that you fell really far and should therefore be injured.
The man kneels down next to you. “Are you alright? What happened?”
“I… fell,” you say lamely, a little confused. “Off of up there.” You point vaguely upwards.
“Are you injured?”
“No, no, I…”
“You’re bleeding! Let’s get you to the healer’s tent…”
“I’m…?” You look down at your hands. Oh, yeah, you tried to catch yourself on a rock wall. Your hands and upper arms are kind of cut up. The bandages on your hands have totally come loose, and what’s left of them is splattered with blood. “Oh, tu ma garas mi’adahl1, Solas is going to kill me!”
“You may have hit your head, you need to come with me,” the man is saying gently. Hit your head? You levitated down, how would you have hit your head? You don’t really want to go with him. You’re still pumping full of adrenaline and fear and your mind is having trouble catching up with what’s going on. Your instincts are not to go anywhere with a Templar.
“No, I didn’t hit my head; I’m fine,” you say, though the amount of blood on your hands is distressing—if only because of the thought of what Solas will do when he sees. He hadn’t yelled at you for using your hands all day, too! You’d figured you were more or less healed, and now this! He’s gonna be so mad!
“Em’! Em’, are you alright?!” You’re more than a little relieved to hear Sera’s voice, even as panicked as she sounds. She can make the Templar go away.
“I’m fine! I’m fine, Solas caught me.” You say the last bit rather loudly, as if to convince both the Templar and everyone still curiously gathered around as to what had happened. The last thing you need is rumors that you’re an apostate.
Sera kneels down next to you. “Oooh, your hands look bad. Andraste’s tits, Em, why’re you always fallin’ off of things aroun’ me?”
“Clearly, you make me feel so light that I forget I can’t fly,” you say dryly. She flushes and shoves your shoulder.
“Don’t joke aroun’ now! We gotta get you to the healer’s tent, c’mon.”
“She’s right,” the Templar says seriously. “Hand injuries are serious, and you might have other injuries from the fall.” He moves to help you stand, and you practically ricochet up.
“Alright…” you glance up at the balcony. Solas isn’t there any more. Maker, is he heading down here? “Yeah, let’s go.”
You let the two of them lead you towards the healing tent. Sera insists on helping you walk, even though you keep telling her that you’re fine; it’s just your hands. She might feel a little guilty, since you keep falling dramatically around her. It’s a shame you can’t actually become involved with her, because your mind is producing good pick up lines at the rate of one every five seconds or so. I can’t help falling for you. I tried to climb into the heavens for your love, but I was cast down. You make me feel weightless. They won’t stop!
You don’t recognize the healer who winds up looking at your hands. He’s a younger man… clearly he was a Circle mage, by his garb. You’re glad the Templars are letting him serve here and not locking him in a tower somewhere for the perceived crimes of his brethren. You know that’s probably just because healers are in desperately low supply during any war. No one loves mages more than when there’s a war on, honestly.
The healer cuts the last of the bandages off of your hands as Sera breathlessly explains that your hands are really important. You don’t even twitch as the man sinks his aura into you; yours is small and already safely locked up far from anywhere he’ll be poking around. Your mind is still on Solas and the Templar still beside you. Why is he still here? You already said it was Solas… is he suspicious?
“There’s magic here,” the healer says, pouting. You and the Templar both stiffen for two very different reasons. “A strengthening spell, but also…” he frowns, and you feel a slight stabbing inside of your hand. “I’ve not seen this before…”
“That’s hardly my fault,” you snap as pain lances through your hand, as if the tendons were being tabbed with tiny needles. “Ask Solas!”
“Solas? The apostate? You said he… caught you?” asks the Templar, placing a gauntleted hand on your shoulder.
He won’t use spell nullification in a healing tent; people would die. You could slice right through that over-bold arm with white hot fire, so he’d never lay a hand on another—
“I work for him.” You barely manage to say it, rather than snarl it. “He often places enchantments on my wrist to help my writing be more steady, and he’s been healing an old injury of mine. If you’re fascinated by his handiwork, as him about it, not me. I’m just here to stop bleeding.” You say that last bit rather pointedly.
The Templar frowns. “He what? Women are not tools to be enchanted at convenience!”
You don’t bare your teeth and growl, but you feel like doing just that. How dare he act like some sort of protecting knight! As if he needs to protect you from Solas! The gall, the absolute, wretched…
“It’s some sort of long-lasting…” the healer is saying, drawing both your attention and your ire.
“Heal me or don’t!” you snap. “But if you don’t intend to, let me find someone who will, please! I am bleeding!”
“Oh, right,” the man says, looking sort of sheepish. “Right, sorry.” You feel the familiar tingling sensation then as your flesh stitches itself back together.
“So, you work for Solas?” the Templar says. You keep your face neutral.
“I do.” You probably shouldn’t be telling people you work for the spymaster, anyway.
“He’s notoriously aloof; I wouldn’t think him the kind to take on an assistant. But you’re not even a mage? Have you known him long?”
This man is pestering you, you realize, not because of suspicions about you, but in an attempt to gather information on Solas. He must have seen that it was Solas who cast the spell, and wanted to investigate. Seems the Templars aren’t leaving him alone as much as you’d thought. Perhaps they simply don’t pester him directly because of the Inquisitor’s influence… respect for the alliance.
But these are still Templars. Templars do not suffer apostates to live freely except under extreme circumstances… wealth and influence being the two primary ones. Solas has neither.
“No,” you say shortly. “I came to the Inquisition not two months ago.” The healer is bandaging your arms now. Perhaps he sees no reason to heal those cuts, since they won’t keep you from working. You can’t begrudge him that; mana is precious in times such as these.
“Why did he—”
“Can you not ask him these questions yourself, ser Templar?” you ask mildly. “I work for him, but not as a diplomat.”
“What do you do for him?”
“I’m his assistant. I assist him.” The healer ties off the last bandage, and you stand. You want to get away from this curious Templar, but you don’t want to go back to the rotunda and face Solas. You head towards the exit to the tent, hoping the Templar takes the hint and stops bothering you. Not that there’s really anything you can do to stop him. Which he doubtlessly knows. Templars are supposed to protect people, but even before this stupid war, that’s never been your experience.
“Are you sure yer alright?” Sera says, clearly worried. “Maybe you should lay down or—”
“I’m fine,” you say shortly as you push your way out of the tent. “Let’s just go somewhere… Somewhere Solas won’t find us. I want to avoid my problems for a while.”
“I would recommend against that.”
Maker damnit.
“Solas,” you say with a wince. You don’t even have to turn to see him. His voice is so familiar that you could probably recognize it while asleep. You turn to look, bracing yourself. There’s steel in his eyes.
Sera steps defensively between the two of you. “Oy, don’t give her that look! She’s not yer kid, you don’t get to lecture her—”
“Sera, it’s alright,” you say gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not alright!” she snaps. “Why is it even your business anyway? It was an acci—”
“Sera.” you say, more firmly. She glares over her shoulder at you. “It’s fine. I’ll catch you later, and maybe we can actually get those drinks. Closer to the ground next time, huh?”
Your joke falls remarkably flat.
Kind of like you.
Heh.
Okay, okay, not funny.
Sera glares one last time, at you and then at Solas, and storms off. Ouch. You sigh at her retreating back. It’s apparently just your fate to have everyone you like mad at you. And normally because you’re trying to mediate between a bunch of elves who hate each other for no damned reason.
Oh. Right. Now you have to deal with Solas.
You eye him nervously, trying to gauge his mood. Is he mad, like when you fell off of the horse or jumped in the way of that Chevalier’s swing? Or concerned, like after the fight where Revas almost died?
He seems to be eyeing you in a similar manner. Finally, he sighs. “How? ” he sounds… a little exasperated, honestly.
“Sera and I were sitting on the edge,” you confess. “It seemed safe enough… but some of the rock gave away when I shifted, and I lost my balance.”
“…You were sitting on the edge? Of a ledge fifty feet off the ground?”
“I, uh… yes.”
Solas rubs his forehead, seemingly at a loss for words. “…I know you are fond of high places, Emma, but you need to be careful,” he says finally.
“Ir abelas, Solas,” you say. Honestly, this could be going a lot worse. He’s not angry, and seems to understand it was an accident. Seems you and Sera both were worried for nothing. “I forget Skyhold is so old… I’ll be more careful.”
“Please,” Solas says, a bit dryly. “I will not always be so conveniently located, and although you may think you can fly, you don’t seem to have figured it out yet.”
You snort, and then, unable to stop yourself, begin to laugh. It starts as a chuckle and then grows as relief floods through you. You’d been unaware of how tense you still were… First the falling, then the Templar, then… You begin to shake, but you can at least hide it in the laughter. Solas places a gentle hand on your shoulder, seeming to understand, as everything sort of hits you. You could have died. Unlikely, perhaps, but possible. And in such a stupid manner. It’s terrifying to think about.
Solas pretends not to notice that at some point, you start crying through your laughter.
You manage to wrest some sort of hold over yourself despite the dizzying flood of emotions. “Thank you, Solas. I’m… not really sure what the protocol for having one’s life saved is,” you chuckle wetly, wiping your eyes off.
He looks surprised, almost… taken aback. With as subtle as his expressions usually are, his shock nearly screams. “I… It’s not… There’s no need,” he manages finally. Why is he so thrown? Technically speaking, he’d probably saved your life multiple times, what with his barriers in both bandit attacks. And he’d saved Revas’s life already. You’d thanked him those times, hadn’t you? Obviously not enough, if he’s surprised now.
“It seems like something more than just a ‘gee thanks for keeping me from turning into a fine paste’ is in order,” you begin to insist, but he cuts you off.
“No ceremony is necessary. I’m simply glad I was able to get there in time.” You frown slightly. Well… maybe you can think of something that you can do that won’t make him feel awkward or put-upon. You’ll give it some thought.
“As am I,” you say, letting it drop for now. “They really should do something about all these ridiculous drops. It’s like whoever designed this had no concept that people can’t levitate.” You chuckle, but it comes up sounding nervous and sort of broken. Seems your nerves are still high. You’re no stranger to near-death experiences, honestly, but there comes a certain… sensation of security, when you escape one through your own luck or skills.
You’re not entirely sure what to do with the feeling of being rescued, and you’re not sure what to do with the sudden realization that it’s barely even the first time Solas has swooped in like this. You’re reminded of the time you’d slipped while running across a rooftop in Val Royeaux. Your mentor had caught you by the arm as you dangled off of a distressingly high ledge. You remember the way those red eyes glinted in the darkness. The sudden relief at being saved, and then—
“‘Tell me, do you know what they say about baby birds?’ Falling, frightened, forsaken. That wasn’t a very good lesson,” Cole says disapprovingly. You don’t even jump when you hear his voice any more; you’re growing accustomed to him popping in and out.
“Agree to disagree,” you say blithely. Cole’s frown deepens.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would you agree if you think I’m wrong?”
You sigh, but Solas is the one who begins to explain. “It means she doesn’t agree, but has no wish to argue,” he says simply.
“Oh,” says Cole. You shake your head. You would have gone into a much more complicated explanation than that. Seems like Cole isn’t the only one who seems to know just what to say. Well, Solas has much more experience with spirits than… Well, anyone. Anyone you’ve ever met, anyway. Even the mages you’d known had no real interest in interacting with them beyond means to an end.
“You do fine,” Cole assures you. “Solas is just older.” You flush slightly. Your odd, one-sided conversations with Cole are a bit awkward when Solas is there to hear half. “He doesn’t mind,” Cole informs you cheerfully, then pauses. “Oh! I should go. Carts don’t need three wheels.”
“Cole, wait, I–Aaaaand he’s gone,” you say with a sigh. “Tell me, does he actually pop around, or does he just make me forget him leaving?”
“A bit of both, depending,” Solas answers. He begins to walk, and you automatically follow him as he heads up the stairs towards the Great Hall. “Should you not find Sera? She seemed cross.”
“She’s always cross when you’re involved,” you reply, not really thinking it through. Solas makes a little huffing exhalation through his nose. Irritated. At you, or her? Probably her. “I’ll find her later… tomorrow, maybe, and apologize then.”
“Apologize? What for?”
You shrug lightly. “For falling off a wall when we were having a nice time. For casting her off to talk with you.”
“Neither of those strike me as things you need to apologize for, given the circumstances.”
“Apologize first. No one ever gets mad at you for apologizing first,” you say with a slight smile.
“You shouldn’t admit so readily to giving empty apologies,” he scolds.
“They’re not empty!” you protest. “I am sorry. Particularly if she’s angry with me.”
“You’re sorry you fell off a wall?” he asks dryly. “Afraid it might have inconvenienced her?”
“Your disapproval and sarcasm are both noted, Solas,” you reply, just as dryly. You hope he’ll pardon you for not taking any advice on how best to handle a woman who loathes him. He’d been here from the beginning and was chiefly avoided and feared. You’d been here for a month and a half and had made better progress on being accepted.
Of course, it’s quite likely that’s simply because it isn’t a priority for him.
You do manage to get a decent amount of work done after recovering from your fright. Maker, it’s been a long day. Solas doesn’t even have to shoo you off to bed; you go on your own. You doubt you’ll be able to sleep, but you’re bone-tired and really want to just lie down for eight hours, sleep or no.
And you do sleep a little; you even catch wisps of dreams. The second your dreaming mind sees a hazy vision of Solas, however, you ricochet awake. More an instinct than anything—your last encounter with Solas while sleeping was burned into your mind. This probably hadn’t been him. Your connection to the Fade had been so tenuous this time that you doubt even a somniari could have visited you.
At least you know your previous, more… questionable dreams featuring Solas hadn’t actually been him. The man who says “it’s not right” to kissing because you don’t know it’s really him is not the man who will take you into a shadowy corner of the Fade and finger you halfway to orgasm. You have only your own subconscious to blame for that one.
You don’t go back to sleep, but you don’t roll out of bed, either. It’s getting towards time to meet up with your “trainer” for practice, but honestly? Fuck that. You’re exhausted, your arms hurt, you just fell off a fucking wall… It’s a waste of your time, and it’s painful every time. You’re not going. What’s Argent going to do? Assassinate you? Tell on you to the Spymaster? Leliana would be an idiot to punish you for not going to her moronic training when you’re still the only one she has to translate that tome.
So you stay in bed reading one of your dragon books until you feel like getting breakfast.
You never even wind up getting all the way to the breakfast hall. Sera is waiting just outside, and some things are more important than eating—though you’re absolutely certain that Solas would disagree. Loudly. The fact that you can almost hear his scolding without him having to bother bodes ill for your continued ability to peacefully skip meals.
Instead of going into the breakfast hall, the two of you wander off across the courtyard. There’s a small amount of commotion by the main gate, probably merchants, so you head the opposite direction, out towards where the new farm is set up. You need to check on it anyway.
“Sorry about ditching you yesterday,” you start things out, mentally scowling at Solas. It’s a good strategy, damnit, and you are sorry. You’ll probably do it again, lots of times, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t sorry.
“Eh,” Sera says, her half-hearted shrug showing it actually bothers her more than it looks like she’s going to admit. “Did Solas yell at you? Because he’s gettin’ spiders in his room if he did,” she threatens. You snort.
“No, he didn’t yell. He mostly just wanted to make sure I was alright, and find out how I happened to wind up falling off a fifty foot drop in the first place.”
“You shoulda told him we were kissin’,” Sera says, sticking her tongue out. “Then he’d leave ya alone! Old perv.”
You ignore the tiny twinge of irritation. She’s joking. You know that. “Really, Sera? Is that your experience, that men leave you alone after they see you kissing other ladies?” you say dryly.
“Yeah! You just gotta kiss ‘em really vigorously. Guess you haven’t been doin’ it right.”
Oh. This turned into flirting really fast.
She stops short of the obvious follow up: “want me to show you how?” You kind of appreciate that, because it makes changing the subject easier, especially when you’d like nothing more than to pull her behind the barn and show her exactly what you know about kissing ladies.
“Duly noted. I’ll add subpar girl-kisser to my list of traits,” you joke.
“Har har. I’m glad that old arse didn’ give you a hard time, anyway,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I thought for sure he was gonna.”
“I thought he might too,” you admit. “But I would have let him yell if he’d wanted to. He did save my life, which is… awkward.”
“Awkward?” Sera asks, tilting her head. The two of you have come to a stop by one of the brand new fences. One of the goats trots over to say hello, and you fondly pet its nose while you think over your response.
“I’m not sure how to react to having my life saved. I’m not really put in those sort of situations often,” you half-lie. “It seems like it should be a thing. You know?”
“Yer over-thinkin’ it,” Sera replies. “You gotta remember, Solas is out in the field with us all the time. Savin’ each other an’ bein’ saved all kinda blurs together. You get used to it. It’s not, like, a big heroic thing like it is when a normal guy jumps in to save another normal guy.”
“I’m a ‘normal guy’,” you point out.
“Yeah, but Solas isn’t, tha’s my point,” she says. “S’proly not even a thing to him, just like it’s not a thing to him when he saves Bull’s bacon—heh, bull bacon—in the middle of a fight.”
You actually give some thought to what she’s saying while the goat idly chews on your sleeve. She’s probably on to something, actually. You’re not really the adventuring type, as many times as your life has been in danger, especially lately. You don’t save people as a profession. You don’t fight; you’re not a soldier or a hero or a warrior. Solas, though… It’s hard to think of him that way, but he’d leapt into the fight both times you’d been attacked by bandits, and been perfectly ready to injure or even kill the Chevalier who’d struck you.
You think of him as a surly but kind-hearted fellow who uses his magic for research and healing, who reads dusty tomes to you and tells you stories. And he is that. But he’s also someone who expertly used his magic to control the flow of a battlefield, who protected allies and murdered foes without blinking. And who clearly knows enough about how death can affect those unaccustomed to it to be concerned for your wellbeing both times he saw you kill a man.
No apostate would have led a peaceful existence in the woods, as you’d suspected. And maybe he hasn’t always been alone. He certainly isn’t now… and he probably saves lives every time he leaves Skyhold, as Sera said.
“I suppose you’re right,” you agree, after a long time of being silent and feeding a goat part of your tunic sleeve. You pull your sleeve from its mouth and give it a scratch on the chin. “Feels weird, though.”
“S’just what you do, when you fight,” she says with a shrug. “You don’t think about it; you just do it. Guarantee yer the only one dwellin’.”
“You fight a lot then, ‘Red Jenny’?” you ask coyly, seizing on the opportunity to both change the subject and question her more on something you’re brutally curious about.
“You recognize the name, then?” she replies, just as coy.
“I lived in Val Royeaux as a servant for years, of course I do,” you say. Only slightly untrue. “And that’s you? You’re her?”
“Sort of,” she says, and launches into an explanation that would be a bit hard to follow if you didn’t already know how “Red Jenny” and her “friends” worked. You were one of her little cogs for a long time, depending on how long she, personally, had been in Val Royeaux. Even back when you were running with the elven underground, Red Jenny was one of the only one who could actually make things happen. You heard about her long before you realized you were her “friend.” Red Jenny used folks; she didn’t necessarily tell them. It was a good system. An unlocked vault here, a secret spilled there, and she tied them together like strings to make something happen.
And then, later, you and she had traded information now and then. She was concerned with messing with nobles who hurt their servants, mostly, and that overlapped with your own ends from time to time. You’d never met face-to-face.
Lucky. You would’ve been wearing a mask, but still. Lucky, lucky. That’s two near misses with Sera. The two of you have been bumping into each other your entire lives, it seems.
“No wonder you’re in the Inquisitor’s Inner Circle, then,” you say finally, when she’s done explaining in her unusual and colorful manner. You want to absolutely pepper her with questions. You’d sent some information “Red Jenny’s” way while you were in Val Royeaux. Will she get it? Or is there a new Jenny there now? Had it always been her, for the time you were in Val Royeaux? Or had she switched in? Does she remember Banal’ras, and what does she think of that little sneak? Probably not much, all things considered, but enough to trade information.
She’d probably love knowing all the things you’d like to tell her. Too bad you can’t. Even Solas barely knows the surface of it, and you’re still kicking yourself over that little lapse in judgment.
Instead, you do what you’d said you would do in the first place, and catch up with her, giving her a tastefully edited version of what happened on the trip to Val Royeaux, including the bandit attacks and the “coincidences” that allowed you to complete the job as well as you did. She seems kind of overly-trusting now that you know who she is, or was, or whatever. But there are always players of the Game who don’t realize they’re playing, or express distaste for it even while playing. Some people just can’t admit they’ve been pulled in like everyone else.
By the time you wind things up with her, it’s well past breakfast. You’ve watched the ex-slaves come out to the farm and begin tending to the animals, and still others continuing to help set things up and tend to the tiny fields. It’s nice to know it’ll continue to run even without your help… though you should speak to Lady Montiliyet or one of the requisition agents about arranging for some more livestock to be brought up before the chill truly sets in for the winter. You’d like to get more goats… All three of the ones you have are female, and with a male or two, you could get a little breeding population going. If you get three males, you could have three litters that could interbreed… and just slaughter the rams after, for meat. You need to—
You need to go do your actual job and worry about the goats later.
You say your farewells to Sera, who seems much less cross with you. As you’re leaving, you see her pull the red silk ribbon out of her back pocket and finger it briefly before tying it around her wrist. A good sign, you think. All in all, things are looking—
The blood in your veins freezes solid as you hear a horrifyingly familiar baying bark.
No, that’s not—you would have seen before… You’re hearing things. Not enough sleep; it was only a matter of time before—
WHAM
- old Elven colloquial for exasperation/frustration (lit. make me come onto a spiked plant) ↩︎