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All in all, the fight against the elven gods didn't take up a big portion of his life. A part of a year, not even a complete one. Once the Veil was back in place. The world didn't have demand for a Rook.
And so Kieran had the choice to be just Kieran again. And he took it. He felt like he snatched his name from the dragon's jaws and let Rook be consumed instead.
Ferelden was home to him and it seemed the obvious choice. Since King Alistair and the Queen were both Grey Wardens and off fighting the remains of the blight in Ferelden, as they had been with Kieran's father, Benedict was currently serving as King Regent, with the assistance of his younger sister Lamb. There were four Theirin-Cousland siblings, Benedict, Lamb, Reuben, and Shallot. All strong and freckled and three of the four had their father's auburn hair. Benedict resembled his father so strongly that you could have mistaken him for a younger version, except for the dark brown hair his mother had that he inherited.
Kieran would stick out as he always had, pale with black hair and shorter than all of them, even Lamb. As children they all ran around Denerim, playing and laughing together. Long before the weight of their parent's expectations fell on their shoulders.
Denerim was in process of being rebuilt almost entirely after the blight had nearly destroyed the city. The palace was included, looking like a building now trapped in multiple decades as Benedict fretted over trying to restore the history while updating the building to modern standards. He did, after all, come from a long line of Theirin kings trying to live up to the standard of their predecessor.
Kieran was the newly appointed Occult Advisor of Ferelden and moved into the palace to assist Benedict and Lamb in the late fall. He quickly busied himself with recruiting spirit healers for the recovering cities in Ferelden and becoming the main point of contact for the Colleges of Magi that were still developing and finding their footing.
The Ferelden winter rolled in quickly that year and hit Denerim hard, forcing all work to slow down or stop. Even correspondences slowed after the first heavy snow. And Kieran found himself with time to spending reading and researching. He ate his meals and savored cups of tea at an indulgently slow pace. He could stay up late by the fire and sleep in late, waking up to gentle snowfall outside his window and dozing in bed. He couldn't remember the last time he was able to set his own hours, when nothing was needed from him urgently.
Becoming Kieran again helped compartmentalize the grief. The loss happened when he was Rook and Rook now felt just as much like a memory.
Rook felt just as dead as the others.
He'd spent days weeping once the gods were dead. He'd cried constantly in Nevarra as he wrapped up his business with the Mourn Watch. Emmrich had politely not mentioned it when they parted ways, as he was dealing with the weight of his own grief. Kieran remembers embracing him tightly when he finally left for Ferelden. He'd promised to visit often as the Necropolis had become a second home during his studies, but deep down he couldn't bear to face it again right now. Fortunately the Ferelden winter hitting so hard had prevented him from traveling for the time being.
He was glad when the letters slowed down as part of the weight of talking to others was which name he used. He was still Ingellvar to the Mourn Watch, a pseudonym chosen to hide his identity at the time. He was often Kieran of the Theirin-Cousland Royal Family when he dealt with palace business. He included that he was the son of Mahariel when interacting with the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. Unfortunately, he was still Rook to anyone who had met him over the last year, each letter digging at the wound.
After Emmrich, Bellara sent him the most letters, with a lot less formality. For a while after the surviving members of the team separated, it felt like she'd sent him a letter every day somehow. Kieran imagined her writing several in quick succession just to get them in the hands of the rare carrier that passed through Arlathan. He had multiple cluttering up his desk while he thought about how to respond.
Answering "How are you?" used to feel so basic. Now it was a doorway for grief to creep in. So he kept it to facts mostly. He told her that was in Ferelden and it was cold. He told her all the embarrassing details he had about the royal family. He described the mabari hounds and how loud they were. He let her know about the heavy Ferelden food he was eating and the smell of the markets in Denerim and how the snow in the courtyard had fallen into his boots and nearly frozen his toes. And once he felt his letters were filled to the brim with useless information, he sent them off and hoped they answered the question.
He'd become quite a fan of shallow conversation. He was deeply fond of looking out the window and remarking tacitly about the weather to Lamb. He loved to thank servants and ask them about their day so far. He was thrilled when Reuben and Shallot came back in from hunting and would recount the event in excruciating detail. He loved to listen to Benedict list petty complaints about his parents as if they weren't the king and queen of Ferelden.
The grief that remained was a deep gnawing pain that could be suppressed by a particularly engrossing book or drowned out by the sound of his own voice talking about nothing. The wound was aggravated by a good meal, the sight of a red bird on a winter branch, a mabari rolling over on her back to request belly rubs. Sometimes it bubbled to the top of a decent cup of coffee or drifted through the air on the smoke from a recently extinguished candle.
The only way to keep it down truly was to remind himself that he was Kieran again now.
And Rook was dead too.