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Varric was awake, when Kieran fled to the infirmary with a bottle of Antivan red in one hand. He was always awake when he needed to talk to him. The dwarf took one look at the bottle in his hand and the expression on his face and sat up. “What’s happened?”
“Oh, nothing.” He sat down heavily on the floor, leaning his back against the neighbouring bed, and uncorked the wine. Red wine gave him a headache. He didn’t really care right then. “Nothing bad, anyway. We just got back from Rivain. One Dragon Hunter, firebreather to boot.”
“Shit. Really?” A grin widened on his face. “My publisher’s never going to believe this one.”
“Right?” He drank some of the wine, pulled a face. He didn’t even like red wine. He drank some more. “Apparently some Qunari are just born fire-breathers. Something to do with their dragon blood.”
“That’s fascinating, kid,” said Varric. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not what you came in here to drink about.”
Ugh. He didn’t want to talk about it. He did want to talk about it. He wanted to skip to the part where he’d already talked about it. “Davrin heard from Antoine and Evka. They’re somewhere called Lavendel, apparently the Blight’s acting weird there. They’ve asked us to go meet them there to tell us more.”
Varric waited. “And?”
Ugh. “And… he’s there. In Lavendel. With the other Wardens.”
Varric took that in, gave him a moment. “You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific, kid.”
“My father.” Kieran scrubbed his hand down his face rather than have to look the dwarf in the eye. “Surana. The Hero of Ferelden.”
Varric winced. “Ah.”
There is someone here you should meet! Antoine had written cheerfully amongst all the doom and gloom. I do not know if you have heard of the Hero of Ferelden, but he stopped the Fifth Blight. He is not popular in Weisshaupt, like us, so he has been helping.
Helping. What a helpful man his father was. Always off helping, and never staying still. Staying home.
Varric was watching him closely. “I take it that’s not a… welcome surprise.”
“It’s not that-” Any other time, he’d have killed to see him. Would have walked to Lavendel by foot if he’d known he was there. But now? When there was so much else to be dealing with? How was he supposed to unpick how he felt with everything else going on at the same time? “I’ve always wanted to see him again. But now is just… difficult.”
Varric sighed. “Kid, there was never going to be a good time. There never is.”
“Yeah, but there could be much better times than this.”
“Okay, but look at this way,” Varric shrugged, sounding optimistic. “At least you’ve definitely got shit in common to talk about?”
Kieran gave him a look. “The end of the world?”
“Exactly! What better to bring you together?”
“You are no help, Varric.”
“First off, stop drinking that shit, you don’t want to be dealing with a headache on top of all this,” scolded Varric, and Kieran just glared at him and drank more. “Second, you know you’ve gotta go. You’ve gotta see him. So just get it done.” His face softened. “He’ll probably be really happy to see you.”
Something in Kieran clenched. He didn’t know what he wanted. Indifference would be cold, but at least it would be final. If his father was happy to see him….
“How long’s it been?” asked Varric, voice gentle.
Kieran swallowed hard. “About thirteen years.” He’d been so young when he’d left. Too young to understand.
“Do the others know?”
He nodded. “I… kinda swore when Davrin showed me the letter. Bellara heard.”
“Your friends have got your back, Rook. Let them back you up.” He smiled. “And if your dad’s a jerk, Davrin can sic Assan on him.”
Kieran huffed a laugh at that, shaking his head. “I think Assan would be on his side. Hero of the Wardens, and all.”
“Hero or not, you’re the one with the truffles.”
—
The first thing that hit Kieran when they emerged from the eluvian was the smell. It was a slap in face with something warm, wet, and dead, and it stank worse than that room in the Necropolis cold storage when the frost runes failed and no-one noticed for two weeks.
“Is it night time?” he asked out loud, staring at the sky in confusion. He thought he’d been counting the hours right at the Lighthouse, but -
“That’s the Blight,” Davrin said over his shoulder. “Dark cloud goes with it. Must be bad here.”
He’d known that. He’d read the books about the Blights. But it was so dark. And it was too quiet. He couldn’t hear any birds, any insects. Barely any signs of life at all.
“Right. Let’s not hang around here any longer than we have to,” he said, with an exhale. “Antoine and Evka probably have things we can help with, so once we’ve talked to them, we can head out.”
Bellara shared a glance with Davrin before looking back to him, eyes round with concern. “You know, if you want to take a moment to find and talk to your dad-”
“He’s probably busy.” He cut her off, but tried to smile after to soften the harshness of it. “And so are we, right? So, let’s get going.”
So naturally he laid eyes on him the moment he stepped into the Grey Hold.
Surrounded by papers and boxes of papers and far too many reports that had absolutely no relevance to anything happening other than he had managed to grab them before leaving Weisshaupt, Warden-Commander Vaere Surana studied a map of the nearby areas and stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek, running it absently against where he had chewed it until it bled and then some more. “Strengthen the barricades on this side,” he told the nearest blue-and-silver-clad person, gesturing to the map. “They’ve been attacking from this side recently. And see who will volunteer for a scouting party.”
No one would volunteer. He’d need to assign them. It didn’t hurt to ask regardless.
There was no time to stop. The Blight didn’t wait for anyone. It had been two decades since he’d gone a year and a half with barely any sleep, rushing from location to location, collecting allies and doing his best to keep his friends from killing each other. And now there was someone new taking up the mantle. Antoine had called him Rook. Evka had said Davrin respected him. That was more than enough.
Vaere’s head rose, a quick sweep around the room, and paused when they landed on Davrin and his companions.
It was so clearly his father that he didn’t even notice who else was in the hall. He was older, yes, more worn, strange now that he was the same height as Kieran rather than towering over him. But it couldn’t be anyone else.
And from the way he stared, he had to recognise Kieran as well. Well… good. Better that than the alternative.
He went to speak and found his throat was too tight. Had to cough and try again, but managed a polite smile with it. “Hello,” he said, and hurray, his voice was nice and even and there was no external sign of the fact his stomach seemed to be trying to claw its way out of his throat. “Sorry to just show up like this. I’m, well, I’m Rook.”
Vaere resisted the urge to run his hand over his face and sigh. “I bet your mother is thrilled by this,” he muttered to himself before straightening up. “Evka said you were coming. Davrin, good to see you.”
“And you, sir,” Davrin was saying with a nod, whilst Kieran was lost going, Was that it? A muttered remark about Mamae and a ‘good to see you’ that wasn’t even aimed at him? He felt a sudden, irrational spike of petty envy at Davrin, that he was already on such casual friendly terms with his father, just proving that he was capable of it and yet not where his own son was involved.
(He was fine. This was fine.)
(He was blushing, for crying out loud, why did he always have to be such a child.)
“Yes, well,” he said, still trying to sound like the impressive serious leader one might expect to be rallying allies to defeat ancient elven gods, and not like he was five seconds from turning on his heel and running right back out the eluvian again. “There are strange things going on with the Blight, and for Blight, you need Wardens. Or so I was always told.” In the stories he’d told him. A hundred times. Everything he’d known about the Blight came from his father. It probably would have felt stranger if he hadn’t been here.
But all Vaere seemed to hear in Kieran's voice was the youth. All he could hear was himself, trying to keep it all together while shoved into a leadership role he had never held, never so much as choosing a robe for himself before then.
Vaere's eyes softened and his eyes lingered on Kieran, a deep sorrow overtaking him for a moment.
“You do,” he said quietly. “And if we can help, then we will.”
“Well. Good.” Damn, this was awkward. “I should, uh, go find Antoine and-” “We can do that!” interrupted Bellara loudly, brightly, “We’ll do that. You guys take a minute. Catch up. No rush. Take your time!”
“No I should - dammit Bellara,” he muttered, as she grabbed Davrin by the arm and dragged him off as well, leaving him. Abandoning him. Traitor!
He fought the urge to fidget as he turned back to his father. To apologise for even being here. Though he’d already done that. He shouldn’t have done that. “Um,” he said, “Mamae’s in Arlathan. If you didn’t know.”
Vaere studied him, the silence dragging out unbearably long. Considered him, before his expression softened further. “How have you been sleeping?” Vaere asked, almost tentative. “Eating?”
“Fine,” he replied automatically, though the dark circles under his eyes would immediately show him off to be a liar. “Our assassin is a surprisingly good cook.”
Vaere's lips quirked up though he suppressed a proper smile. “Liar,” he said evenly, pushing off of the table. He approached Kieran and extended a hand towards him. “Lad, I know how this feels. I've done this before. So I'll ask again. How are you sleeping?”
Lad. He hated how that one word alone was enough to cause a lump in his throat, to make the corners of his eyes hot with tears that wanted to spring forward. “... about as much as you did, probably,” he admitted, in little above a mutter. There was always too much to be doing. Or thinking about. Or… Solas to talk to. A hundred things, other than sleep.
Vaere dropped his hand when Kieran didn’t look at him, and after only a moment’s hesitation, crossed the remaining distance to pull his son into his arms.
Kieran was a lot taller than he’d been the last time Vaere had seen him. Puberty had an interesting way of working; he could see himself now, where Kieran had always taken after Morrigan when he was little.
“I hope not,” Vaere said, trying to keep his voice light. “I spent a lot of time passing out drunk. I hope you’re doing better than I ever did.”
He tried to stay strong. He really did. But the moment his Babae pulled him into his arms, and he felt that all-encompassing warmth and love again, it was like no time had passed at all. Like he’d just run to him after jumping in the stream again, or he’d just returned from a trip to the market, or he just fancied a hug for no reason at all and his father never denied him.
With no conscious decision, Kieran hugged him right back, fiercely, and pressed his face into his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see him cry.
“Me drinking is a mess,” he admitted thickly, “No-one needs that.”
His boy. His darling boy. His darling boy desperately needed this hug, Vaere could tell, in the way he clung and hid his face. “I agree,” Vaere murmured. “It was not a good choice.” His heart broke, shattered, the longer he thought about it. He had fought for a world where Kieran would be safe, and still the world kept going to shit.
Maybe Kieran would be able to do what he hadn’t been able to do.
“I missed you,” Vaere told him, his face tucked to Kieran’s hair. “Every day. I’m glad to see you, lad, even if it’s under these circumstances.” Especially under these circumstances.
Then why didn’t you come find me? Kieran bit the words back before they could escape. Why didn’t you try harder? Why did you leave in the first place? None of them were worth saying. There was no point. There was no answer he could give that would be good enough. Older Kieran, now Kieran, who’d seen what could be stake and what needed to be done could stop it, he could already understand and answer his own questions for himself.
But the boy in him, the one who’d sat by an open cabin door all day waiting for his Babae to come home - he’d never get an answer he could accept.
But he’d missed him. He was glad to see him now. He could accept those things, and keep holding onto him, and make a mess of his shoulder with the tears that kept stubbornly pouring from his eyes.
“Another Blight,” he managed, with a weak laugh. “Lucky I had all those stories from you as a boy, I guess?”
“It is not a normal Blight.” Vaere hadn’t let go of Kieran as Antoine entered and set down the journal he’d taken to carrying around like it was single-handedly keeping him sane. “It sings different. Bonjour, Rook.”
“So you keep saying,” Vaere sighed. “Blight is Blight. Different or not. We fight it the same way. By ignoring Weisshaupt and doing what we can.”
Kieran tried to release his father, to step away, but his arms didn’t move. “Hi Antoine,” he replied, turning his face so his voice wasn’t muffled in his shoulder at least. “Uh, we’re just - catching up.”
“I see that.” Antoine didn’t blink. “How can we help, Rook?”
Was this a normal occurrence around here? Antoine wasn’t batting an eye, and Bellara and Davrin weren’t going to be any help either, from the way Davrin was grinning and Bellara was trying very hard not to bounce on the balls of her feet in delight.
He really couldn’t talk about this whilst being hugged by his father, though. No matter how long it had been. He made another effort to disentangle himself, to turn to face them properly.
“Davrin said that you’d gotten in touch about the Blight out here. That there was something strange about it. It must be because of the gods, so, we need to understand it. What can you tell us?”
It seemed difficult for Antoine to put his focus fully onto him, eyes clouding before he shook his head. “There is a strange calling. In the blight,” he explained. “Something… evil. I have listened to the blight, from different places, but it is all the same. It is in all of it. At first I heard the gods, but now… It pulses. Weird. Towards somewhere… dark. There is something else. Here in the Wetlands.”
“And we can’t spare the people to investigate,” Vaere finished with a grimace. “We need help. And… you seem to be the connecting force between us and our allies in this fight, lad.”
Kieran met Davrin’s eyes and nodded. “We can check it out, if you can give us a heading,” he offered. Bellara nodded too. D’Meta’s Crossing loomed too large in all their minds to just walk away easily. “If you have supplies you need, we can ask our other allies as well. Deliver it through the eluvians.”
And just that quickly, he was going to have to be off again. He looked back to his father, blinking hard to keep his eyes from spilling again. “Can I -” There were so many things he wanted. To talk to him for hours. To hear everywhere he’d been, and tell him every minute of his life that he’d missed. “Will you be here, when we come back?” Vaere nodded. “Of course,” he said softly. “I’ll be here, lad. Just make it back here in one piece.” He hesitated, glancing to Kieran’s friends. “Your mother will kill me if you become a Warden, so don’t go getting blighted.”
An unexpected laugh broke from him at that, even as Davrin said, “Don’t worry, sir, I make sure they stay back from the worst bits. And what have we learned about popping those boils?” he added, looking with exaggerated sternness at Kieran and Bellara.
The pair of them chanted obediently in unison, “From a distance.”
“Exactly.” He looked back to Vaere with a glimmer of pride on his face he usually only reserved for Assan. “No offence to your boy, but I caught him trying to stab one once.”
“I wanted to see what it was like inside before it all popped!” he protested, as Bellara laughed at him. “There’s never anything left after!”
Vaere shuddered at the very thought of being near one of the popping boils. The Blight was nasty. He’d been covered in it before. It was not a fun experience. “It’s not worth the trouble, lad,” he told Kieran and smiled despite himself.
“Yeah. Leave that to the Wardens,” said Davrin firmly, and met Antoine’s eye and nodded. “If we find anything interesting out there, we’ll bring it back.”
“Merci, Davrin, Rook, Bellara,” Antoine said. “We cannot fight it properly without understanding it, non?”
“En effet,” Kieran agreed, with a smile at Antoine. “We’ll be back soon.”
—
‘Soon’ turned out to be late into the night, and despite Davrin’s best efforts, all three of them were coated in mud, blood, and Blighted gore. They’d rinsed it off their hands and faces as soon as they’d been splattered, by Davrin’s strict regimen, but it would be a relief to get back to the Lighthouse and clean themselves off properly.
But, they had several samples, they’d found a demon in a well, and killed a particularly grumpy ogre. All in all a good day.
“I’m surprised there was a Fen’Harel altar this far north,” Bellara had wondered as they tramped back up the steps to the Grey Hold, aching and exhausted, “It’s hard to imagine the ancient elves around in all…. this.”
Kieran didn’t even have the energy to shrug. “It must have been different before the Blight. I hear it’s all forest north of the Weathered Pass - it must have been greener here once.”
“Yeah,” sighed Bellara, wistful, eyeing the mud caking her bare feet. “Might’ve been nice.”
The Grey Hold was much emptier now, this late in the day - in the night - and Kieran tried to pretend he wasn’t anxious, wondering if his father would still be there. Would be easy to find.
Vaere never seemed to stop working. Evka had joined him now, sitting in a quiet room and going over reports. Sorting reports, more than actually finding anything useful in them. “Why did we take these?” Vaere sighed. Evka snorted without answering and just shook her head, tossing another report into their ‘absolutely useless’ pile, which was twice the size of its ‘may be useful’ counterpart.
Footsteps and the smell of blight alerted him to their presence. Vaere’s head shot up, eyes fixing immediately on Kieran. “You’re back,” he said, sounding relieved. “Are you hurt at all, lad?”
“Two arms, two legs, one head,” he promised, exhaustion leaking into his answering smile. “We’re fine.”
“We dealt with an ogre,” Davrin reported, “and plenty of smaller darkspawn too. Cleared them out right back to the edges of the farmlands. They’ll be back, but you might get a breather.”
“Also there’s a demon in a well,” Bellara added, brows creasing in concern. “We buried it and covered it over, but your people shouldn’t get too close.”
“Here are Antoine’s samples,” Kieran rounded them off, taking off a satchel of containers and putting it on the floor. No need to go getting Blight on surfaces people might eat off. “We can get more if he needs. We’ll be going back out tomorrow anyway.”
“Thanks, Rook,” Evka said, nodding her head. She’d make sure Antoine got the samples after he slept.
There’d been one of those giant boils, the ones that could contain the Evanuris’s Champions which sealed the ways through the Crossroads. Kieran wanted to come back for a closer look, and to deal with it. But not now. Now was getting clean and falling over, preferably in that order. “... Could we stay here, for the night? The Crossroads have a bad habit of dropping Antaam on us, and I really don’t want to fight anything else today.”
The answer was, of course, a resounding yes; Vaere would have given up his cabin without hesitation. But catching the look from Evka, the one that threatened bodily harm if he didn’t step away from work, he swallowed a sigh and pushed back from the table.
“Of course, lad,” Vaere said, gesturing for them to follow him. “Come. I’ll set you up somewhere.”
He’d have been happy with a patch of floor - he’d curled up in enough ruins at this point, just having a roof was a luxury - but he followed his father, Bellara and Davrin trailing as well.
“Soooo,” Bellara said as they walked, not too tired for curiosity mingled with mischief to be sparking in her eyes, “Commander Surana, what was Rook like as a kid?”
“Bellara!” said Kieran, aghast.
“What? Morrigan will never tell us anything.”
Because Morrigan hadn’t spent as much time with Kieran as Vaere had, until he’d packed up and left. “Kieran had a remarkable fondness for the rocks in the stream near us,” Vaere answered, leading through the village towards the cabin he’d been forcibly handed, the biggest of the lot. He hadn’t needed the biggest one, but there was only so long one could argue with Evka and Antoine before giving up.
“I think there were close to ten that we kept up on the mantle for him. Rocks, that is.”
“Hey so Lavendel is nice,” Kieran said loudly, a blatant attempt at changing the subject better than none. And it wasn’t that much of a lie! It could have been nice, when it wasn’t dark, gloomy, with the smell of rot and Blight on the wind. Davrin cleared his throat, which might have been covering up a laugh, but Bellara was not deterred.
“You liked rocks?” she asked Kieran, and bless her, she sounded truly interested, “Was it the shape or the colours?”
“... The shape, mostly,” he muttered, face flushing red. He’d liked how they felt in his hands.
“He wasn’t allowed out by the stream by himself, small lad he was. We worried he’d drown himself by accident trying to reach for one of the rocks in the deeper sections.”
He remembered. He remembered his father - his Babae - wading out into the freezing water with him, holding all the rocks Kieran passed him, reaching for ones that were too deep for him and letting him inspect them, before putting them in pockets or throwing them away for the pleasing blop of hitting the water again, sinking out of sight. He remembered never being aware of how cold he was until his Babae was already carrying him back to their cabin, holding him close even though his clothes would be soaked through, and putting him in front of the fire to warm up, to try and comb through the tangled mess his hair would have become.
When his father opened the door to the cabin in Lavendel he had led them through, he half expected to see his old mabari Ghilan sleeping by the fire, his rocks laid out on the mantel.
But of course they weren’t there. The space was cold and dark, fire not lit yet, and all it contained were his father’s few belongings, scattered about. This wasn’t home. This was somewhere else.
He looked to his father. He wasn’t the same man either. Older. More worn. Or maybe he had always looked like this, and Kieran had just been too young, too innocent to see.
“I saw a shed out back,” Davrin said into the quiet, “I’ll go out there with Assan, he’ll just make a mess in here otherwise.”
“Thanks, Davrin.” This was clearly a small family’s home, not designed with a griffon in mind, let alone four full-grown adults. “Uh, is there somewhere we can wash off, so we’re not getting Blight all over the house?”
Vaere pointed out in the direction of the impromptu washroom. “Be careful if you heat the water at all, it has a habit of splashing out enough to burn your toes,” he said.
He was unsurprised to see Bellara go first, leaving Kieran with him. The quiet was difficult to manage; it had Vaere sighing and turning towards him. “I’m sorry, lad,” he said quietly.
I’m sorry. It had him feeling all of seven years old again, stood in an empty cabin by a cold fireplace and unsure of what had happened.
For leaving? For not saying anything? They were both too small words for that. And they didn’t fix anything. The small boy in him didn’t care that his Babae was sorry, he cared that he was gone.
Kieran wasn’t a small boy any more, though. He was a grown man and there was far more at stake than his own petty hurts.
“Don’t worry, I get it,” he said, to his father and the small boy both. “Warden stuff, right? You can’t exactly sit around in a cabin in the middle of nowhere when you’ve saved the world once.”
Vaere hesitated. Considering his words carefully, Vaere poked his tongue into his cheek and sighed. “I wanted to stay,” he murmured. “But I didn’t want you or your mamae to get hurt because of me.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, as lightly as he could manage. Which was not very lightly at all.
Vaere’s brow pinched. “I mean people around me get hurt, lad,” he said softly. “And I didn’t want you or your mamae to be hurt.”
That made no sense. It wasn’t like his father was cursed, someone who made bad things happen by his mere presence.
“I said don’t worry about it.” He looked away, went back to the doorway of the hut to begin to scrape the worst of the Blight off his clothes and his boots. “Where did you go, anyway?”
Vaere closed his eyes and sighed. “Antiva,” he said after a minute, “and then south. There were some Warden things I needed to attend to, and… friends to check on.”
All this time, he’d told himself that his father must have had important reasons to leave. Important, world-altering matters that required his, and only his, attention. Something that mattered more than his child.
But no. It just sounded like he’d been…. bored. Restless.
He pressed his lips together and gave his boots much more attention than they needed. “Did it get sorted, at least?”
Vaere’s gaze came to rest on Kieran, something indiscernible in his expression. “For the most part,” he answered.
Something shifted. His expression, his stance. A mournful look replaced the unknowable thing. Vaere strode over to Kieran and rested his hand on his shoulder. “Lad… You’re a good boy. Better than I ever was, certainly. More like your mother than me.” He even looked more like her. “Don’t- Remember there is more than responsibility to your life. Remember to have fun. Even now.”
He had no idea if he was a good boy because he hadn’t been around long enough to know him. But the sorrow in his father’s face made Kieran’s stomach twist in guilt. Maybe he had left, but he was clearly trying to reach out to him now. He’d missed him. He cared about him.
Kieran’s face softened as he looked back at him. “It’s - hard to know when I’m going to manage that,” he admitted. “There’s so much happening, all over. All the time. It’s - relentless.”
“I know.” Vaere squeezed his shoulder. “It won’t let up. You need to make the time. You cannot let responsibility encompass your entire life, or it will fuck you up. Badly. You’ll start to think every good thing is a trick. Don’t let it be.”
“Is that from personal experience?”
Smiling grimly, Vaere nodded. “Yes.”
He dropped his eyes. “Do you think every good thing is a trick?”
Vaere sighed and pulled Kieran back towards him, tucking his son back into his arms. “You are not a trick,” he murmured. “And I love you very much.”
His traitorous eyes were leaking again. “I missed you too,” he mumbled, muffled, into his father’s shoulder. “... I didn’t understand why you left. I get it now, but, I didn’t.”
“Your mother wrote several letters with some choice words for me. I’m sure she wrote many more that I never received. Or she never sent.” He cupped Kieran’s head, rubbed his back; if only he were still small enough to hold in his arms so that Kieran would try to climb him again. “I’m sorry, lad. I think maybe we’re just too Dalish to stay in one place for very long, our family.”
Our family. The words warmed something in him that he hadn’t realised was cold, and he pulled himself tighter into his father’s arms.
“I want to tell you everything you missed,” he sighed. Orlais. The Inquisition. The Necropolis. “But I don’t know when we’ll have time.”
Vaere held him tightly. He couldn’t care about the blight that splattered clothes still, the mud that would no doubt get all over his armour. He couldn’t care less. “I just told you, didn’t I? You need to make time.”
“Will you?” He looked up and asked him plainly. “If I do?”
Vaere nodded once, a firm nod.
“Then - maybe tomorrow?” he offered, hesitant. “If we manage to clear out the gods’ Champion quickly?”
“Alright, lad,” Vaere murmured. “Tomorrow.”
It was almost strange, sleeping away from the Lighthouse. He had become more used to the constant, ambient hum of the Fade’s magic than he thought. It had become soothing, and without it, the night sounded far too empty and quiet. The only noises from out in the wetlands were the occasional grunt or screech which he didn’t want to think about at all. To imagine darkspawn creeping back closer.
They didn’t waste time come morning. They made a good breakfast out of the supplies they had brought with them (only half of which ended up being stolen by Assan) and were able to restock potions out of the Wardens’ own supplies, with a promise to bring back what they could from Arlathan next time they went.
“The last couple of these things have been pretty big,” Kieran confided in his father as they were gearing up. “Any advice?”
“Don’t let it get close to you.” It was as good an answer as Vaere had. They were mages, both of them; letting anything close was akin to suicide.
He stopped Kieran before he could leave and pulled him into another hug. He’d given a lot of those over the last few hours. “You come back, alright, lad?” Vaere murmured. “You come back, in one piece.”
Kieran pointedly didn’t look at either Davrin or Bellara. Davrin would be suppressing a grin at yet another hug, and Bellara’s eyes would be shining with delight. “That’s the plan,” he said, brightly enough. Not that his own necromantic magic was much good against darkspawn. He just had to stay back and let Davrin beat the thing down whilst Bellara picked at it with her arrows. “Right, Assan?” he added to the griffon, who let out an enthusiastic squawk. Assan could be confident enough for the both of them.
Vaere’s lips tightened. He gave Kieran one last squeeze and after only a moment’s hesitation, dropped a kiss to his son’s head. “I love you, lad. Be safe.”
—
As the Disciple-in-Ichor dropped, so did Kieran. His mana was spent, his ankle was twisted under him, his arm was burning and cold in a way that suggested it was broken. He just didn’t have the energy left to heal himself. He barely had the energy to keep his head above the water of the damp bog.
It smelled really bad. Bog and Blight and burning champion - monster - thing. He was going to need another bath.
He heard a screech and a splash as Assan landed next to him, with Davrin’s splashing footsteps close behind. “Easy, boy,” he heard him murmur to the griffon, then felt his hand on his shoulder. “Rook. Rook, you hear me?”
He tried nodding, but that made his head spin, so he mumbled, “Yes.”
“Good. Stay awake. Bellara, you got the Essence?”
“Got it!” Bellara’s voice called back across the battlefield.
“Right. I’m gonna pick you up, Rook.”
He couldn’t bite back a cry of pain as his arm was jostled in the movement. He heard Bellara splashing over, felt her gentle hands on his arm as Davrin secured him in his own. “That’s definitely broken, and bad,” he heard her say, concerned. “We should get that fixed back in Lavendel.”
“Surana’s a healer,” he heard Davrin say, and the two of them began heading back towards the village, Assan taking flight once again with a screech. “He’ll take care of him.”
Even amidst being exhausted, filthy and in excruciating pain, Kieran still had time to wince internally and think: Oh great. This is just how I want my father to see me. “Can’t you fix it?” he asked Bellara weakly.
“Don’t be stupid, Rook,” said Davrin. “You know better than that.”
“And, no,” admitted Bellara plainly. “It’s a bad break. I wouldn’t want to risk messing it up.”
He sighed. Great. This was just great.
—
“Commander!”
Vaere looked up from the reports. He’d not expected anyone to come bothering him for a while still. But the boy who’d run up—because he was a boy, barely older than Vaere had been when he’d first been conscripted—looked at him with wide eyes. “Davrin and Rook and their friend are back. They need healing, sir.”
Fuck. Vaere was moving before the boy had finished talking, staff firmly in hand. “Lead me, now,” he instructed.
Kieran. His thoughts raced. If Kieran wasn’t alright, if he was hurt, Morrigan would kill him.
Maker help him, she’d have to beat him himself to it, if Kieran was badly hurt.
“Move,” Vaere barked, clearing space near them. It was Kieran. Of course it was Kieran. But he seemed awake at least. Alert? “Lad, can you look at me?” he asked, softening his voice. “Can you tell me your name? What year is it?”
Kieran tried to sit up the moment Davrin set him down on a cot, but Bellara shoved him back down. “I’ll make Assan sit on you,” she warned.
“And he’ll do it,” Davrin agreed. He tried to protest, but then other Wardens were upon them, checking his eyes, cutting away the worst of his Blighted clothing before it could get near his wounds. And the room was spinning a bit, so he should probably rest his eyes. Just whilst they all did their thing.
He heard his father and managed to crack an eye to look up at him. “Hey,” he said, “‘M fine, promise. Just got a bit banged up.”
“His arm’s broken,” called Bellara from across the room, where she was getting a gash in her shoulder cleaned out and bandaged. “And I think his ankle’s taken a hit as well.”
“See?” He waved vaguely in her direction. “Fine.” Kieran hadn’t answered a single one of his questions. Vaere narrowed his eyes. “Follow my finger,” he instructed. Kieran made an attempt to track the finger movements but rapidly got dizzy and just closed his eyes again instead. He just needed a nap and he’d be fine.
“Darkspawn aren't that bothered by necrotic magic, turns out,” he mumbled conversationally. “Kinda just pisses them off.”
Vaere sighed, the same sigh he would let out every time Kieran would track mud into the cabin to show him the newest frog he’d found to call a friend by the creek. “I could’ve told you that,” he murmured. To Bellara and Davrin, Vaere said, “he’s got a concussion as well. You’ll need to make sure he’s not particularly addled or confused over the next few days. If he is, make him rest. He’s a small lad, sit on him if you have to.”
Embarrassment coiled in his gut as he heard his father giving instructions to his friends. Some son of the Hero of Ferelden he was. Couldn’t even fight darkspawn properly. Mamae was the one who’d chosen to leave him at the Necropolis. But then, she’d probably hoped he’d never see a darkspawn in his life, let alone fight them. Just live as a nice, normal boy, amongst the graves, where Solas could never find him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. To his father. To his Mamae. To everyone he was letting down.
His attention drawn back to his son, Vaere swept Kieran’s hair from his face and his expression gentled once more. “Hush, lad. You did what I told you to do, didn’t you? I told you to come back in one piece, and you did that. Nothing to apologise for.”
“I got hurt.” He screwed up his eyes at his father's gentle touch because he could feel them growing treacherously warm. “I tried to stay back, I really did. But the - thing - it could teleport around, so there wasn't anywhere safe-” He cut himself off. Excuses meant nothing. “I swear I'm normally better at this.”
Was Kieran worried he was disappointed? Maker help him. Vaere sighed and began to heal him, starting with Kieran’s wrist. “It happens. Shit happens. You can’t always control a battlefield. And your allies-” He directed a sharp look up at Davrin. “-should know to protect their mage.”
“You’re right, sir.” Davrin’s mouth was set in a grim line as he accepted the rebuke without complaint. “It won’t happen again.”
“Hey now,” Kieran protested, albeit feebly as his wrist began to itch and burn as it healed, “You were trying to kill the thing, like we all were. And you didn’t know it could teleport either.”
“None of the others have been able to do that,” agreed Bellara, coming to sit near Kieran’s cot with a weary huff. “I really hope there aren’t too many more of them out there.”
It didn’t matter if there were more of them or not if they didn’t know to protect their mage. Vaere kept his mouth shut and focused on healing the wounds that were simple enough to fix. He couldn’t use all of his energy or mana, not when there was ever the chance that they might be attacked.
“You’re going to rest, Kieran,” he said firmly. “At least two days. A full two days.”
Kieran let out an exasperated huff. “I can’t,” he said plainly. “There’s too much that needs doing.”
He’d already seen what happened if he wasn’t everywhere he needed to be. Minrathous had paid the price. Every night he wasn’t dragged in front of Solas to answer for his inadequacies, he was having nightmares of emerging from the eluvian to find another place in ruins. Arlathan on fire. The Grand Necropolis reduced to rubble. Treviso overrun with Blight.
Where were you? his allies were always demanding, crying, shouting. Where were you, where were you, where were you?
Vaere’s eyes flicked up to the others and then back to Kieran. “Either you rest with your friends, or you stay here,” he said seriously.
“Sure,” Kieran said, far too levelly. “I’ll go back to the Lighthouse and rest there.” Davrin narrowed his eyes at him but said nothing. Vaere was not as kind as Davrin was. “Jean-Marie,” he called back, “make up cots for Kie-Rook and his friends. They’ll be staying.”
“Yes, Commander,” a particularly-moustached Warden saluted back.
Kieran sat up in a rush, ignoring Bellara’s squeak of alarm and the pounding that started up again behind his eyes the moment he was upright. “You can’t stop me leaving,” he said, indignation suddenly running hot in his veins, “I’m not one of your Wardens.”
“No, you’re not. You are my son.” Vaere fixed a tired but pointed look on Kieran.
“Yeah? When did that start meaning something to you again?” He tried to get up but his head spinning forced him to sit back down again. It wasn’t as dramatic as he’d have liked. “Because I might be your son, but you don’t get to be a father when you haven’t even shown your face in over ten years.”
Vaere didn’t need to push him back down. He could guess how poorly Kieran was doing, given the lack of focus to his gaze. “It has always meant something to me,” he said softly. “I am sorry it has not, to you.”
“You - it meant everything to me!” All the words he’d bitten back the night before had apparently shaken loose in his scrambled head, because all he wanted was to get out of here and back to the Lighthouse, and they were falling from his mouth one after another. “You were my Babae! But you weren’t there! You left! So no, you don’t get to tell me what to do now! Not when you haven’t given a damn before!”
Vaere gestured around to clear the area, the Grey Wardens scattering to their respective duties. Bellara looked stricken between the pair of them, and Assan crept closer, put his head in her lap and made worried noises.
“Kieran,” Vaere said, his voice quieting. “I am sorry. Now is not the time for this.”
Not the - Kieran opened his mouth to argue some more, but Bellara’s hand shot out and grabbed his shoulder. Restraining. Steadying.
It stopped him long enough to remember where they actually were. What was actually at stake, beyond his belated anger.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE, he remembered Vorgoth asking him once as a boy, another lesson, BETWEEN VALOR AND RAGE?
He had chewed his lip, thinking. He knew the mages he'd met in the South would say that Valor was a spirit and Rage was a demon. But he'd learned very quickly that any answers he'd picked up in the South tended to be wrong. Or at least overly simplistic.
“Rage is destructive,” he’d offered hesitantly. Vorgoth had remained silent. “.... But so can Valor be, I suppose. Or at least, fights can be. And Valor likes fights.”
INDEED. Vorgoth had clasped his hands before himself. WHAT DISTINGUISHES THEM?
He wracked his brains. He'd only seen drawings of Rage demons in books. Towering forms of fire and lava, roaring their anger to the world. He'd seen spirits of Valor, though. They had clustered around Tarasyl’an Te’las, though they had not come close to him and Urthemiel. Most of them looked like intrepid knights, daring mages, elves with faces bare of vallaslin who lifted their chins with pride.
The obvious differences all seemed too superficial. He was missing something. “I don't know,” he said finally. “Please tell me.”
Vorgoth seemed to ponder it. CONSIDER THE FIRE, he said eventually, AND THE FURNACE.
“..... Rage is raw,” Kieran hazarded. “Powerful but… it just burns. Whereas Valor is… directed?”
CLOSER, Vorgoth nodded. RAGE IS AN EMOTION. VALOR IS A CHOICE. IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE DISTINCTION.
“But it's a bad emotion,” Kieran had said uncertainly.
WHY? Vorgoth was as unreadable as ever.
“Because…. it makes people hurt people. It makes everyone unhappy.”
FALLING RAIN CAN MAKE PEOPLE UNHAPPY. BUT IT ALSO WATERS THE CROPS, AND FILLS THE RIVERS. Vorgoth bowed his head. RAGE IS NOT GOOD OR BAD. IT SIMPLY IS. BUT IT CAN DRIVE PEOPLE TO CHOOSE TO DO HARM. IT IS THE CHOICE THAT IS WRONG, he concluded, NOT THE RAGE ITSELF.
He might be angry now, but he didn't have to shout like this. Now, here.
“... Right,” he conceded, and looked at the floor. Assan moved from Bellara’s lap to press at his hand, and he obligingly scritched the griffon, feeling his heart slow back towards normal as he did.
Davrin moved from where he’d been leaning against a wall. “I'll send back to the Lighthouse to let them know we'll be staying another night. We can… decide the rest tomorrow.”
Vaere nodded shortly. He stood up and took a few striding steps away from Kieran. Maker help him, but the lad was just like him. “Get some rest, Kieran,” he said quietly, his tone muted.
Kieran watched him leave and huffed, still frustrated, still ashamed of his own failures, still feeling - just, inadequate, in every damn way. Assan squawked under his hand, butting at him again. Relentless in his demands for fussing.
“You okay, Rook?” asked Bellara softly.
“Not really,” he admitted in a tight voice, choosing to look at Assan rather than her or Davrin. “First I get beat up by a Champion then I have my Babae trying to coddle me for it. How pathetic do I- ow!” Assan had narrowed his eyes and nipped at his hand with his sharp beak, and Kieran snatched it back.
“I think that’s griffon for ‘stop complaining’,” noted Davrin with a raised eyebrow.
Kieran huffed. “Big talk from the featherball who whines if he doesn’t get enough truffles,” he grumbled back.
“Look, Rook.” Davrin sat down on his cot next to him, put a hand on his shoulder. “You had a tough day. That’s okay. Tough days happen. And you took a hit, which, I’m surprised you’ve not taken more. You really are bad at staying behind the fighters,” he pointed out when Kieran opened his mouth to protest. “Sleep on it,” he said firmly, and squeezed at his arm. “Everything’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Actually if he’s hurt his head, we’ll need to wake him up every couple of hours to check he’s not dead,” pointed out Bellara, wincing.
“... Things’ll feel as better as they can in the morning, after a night of shitty sleep,” Davrin amended.
Kieran huffed a reluctant laugh at that. “At least your pep talks are honest.”
“You want pretty words, we’ll get that fancy cousin of Lucanis’s.” He took his hand away from Kieran’s shoulder and got to his feet, leaving him strangely cold without him. “You want ugly honesty? I’m your guy.”
“Ugly honesty, any day,” said Kieran, utterly sincere. Davrin laughed, but quickly sobered and looked at Kieran seriously.
“You want ugly honesty, then?” When Kieran did not protest, he went on. “Cut your dad a break. He’s doing his best.”
Kieran wanted to still be angry, but it was getting harder to hold onto it. It was fading just into weariness. “He left us,” he said. “My Mamae and me. Without a word.”
“You don’t have to think he’s a saint,” pointed out Davrin gently. “Just hear him out. As a man.”
Kieran thought about those words and turned them over in his head as they all settled in their cots. As Bellara started her gentle snores, as Davrin slept as silent and unmoving as if he was one of his own wooden carvings.
He had his memories of his father. And he knew the stories of the Hero of Ferelden. But did he know anything about the man behind both?
—
He drifted in and out of uneasy sleep, and as Bellara had warned, his shoulder was shaken every hour or two by a Warden to check he was all right. A bleary answer of his name was enough to satisfy them, and they’d leave him to it. But after a couple of such things, when it was late in the night, he found himself not wanting to return to sleep.
Assan cracked an eye and peered at Kieran as he slid his own feet to the cold stone floor and got out of his cot, but he just pressed his finger to his lips, and the griffon settled again. Some Wardens were still awake at this hour, but only one or two glanced his way as he made his way back into the Grey Hold. He was only in his shirt and trousers, overrobes and armour discarded, so he clearly wasn't making a break for the eluvian, so they let him be.
He made his way to the small office - more like a desk tucked into a quiet corner and buried in paperwork - which his father had shown him just that morning. A candle was still burning as he approached, throwing the dark circles under his father's eyes into harsh relief.
He knocked lightly on a wood jamb in lieu of a door. “Hey. Um. Working late?”
Warden-Commander Vaere Surana, Hero of Ferelden, nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the knock on the door, only just catching himself before he knocked the candle over. “Kieran? Are you alright?”
“Sorry, yes. Everything’s fine.” His head still ached, but it had faded to a dull and manageable throb. And his vision was back to normal. “I just-”
Well, there was no point tiptoeing around it. “I’m sorry for earlier. I’ve never been a good patient,” he admitted, “but I was - I shouldn’t have said the things I did.” ‘Sorry’ seemed so small and inadequate to counteract the words he’d hurled so cruelly in his father’s face. They didn’t seem to weigh the same at all.
Vaere didn’t answer right away. His expression entirely neutral, he studied Kieran for a long minute without speaking a word.
Finally, he broke. “You’re handling the weight of the world better than I would have expected. I’m proud of you.”
Shame at how he’d acted curdled alongside the unexpected warmth of pride, of that bottomless need for approval being met, so foreign it didn’t feel like it belonged to him at all. He didn’t know what to do with it and just ducked his head, reddening. “Don’t be nice to me after I was a dick,” he protested feebly.
Vaere chuckled and dropped his gaze back to the reports. “What do you want me to say, lad? You’re a grown man; I’m not going to punish you like you’re a boy again.”
“I know. I just-” He scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. “I do understand. That you left because you felt like you had to. I just.” Wish you hadn’t. But he wasn’t a child wishing on falling stars, was he? He had to be more than that. He wanted to be more than that. “I missed you. And I guess I was still a bit mad at you.” It hurt to admit. “But I don’t want to be, so, I’ll - deal with that. In the meantime, can we just… try to catch up on what we missed?”
“Of course, Kieran,” Vaere said. He sighed, something soft, small, and gestured. “You should be resting still. I know you’re probably restless, but it will only be worse in the long run if you don’t rest.”
“I already feel a lot better,” he protested, and found himself a crate to sit on, leaning back against the wall and wrapping his arms around his legs to hug them tight to him. “My headache’s mostly gone, and-” He pulled a face and looked at his knees. “There's too much going on for me to just lie around.”
“That’s exactly why you need to just lie around,” Vaere said, leaning his palms against the table in front of him. “If you don’t rest, you’ll make mistakes. When this many people look to you for hope, for you to lead, you can’t afford mistakes. You need to rest.”
“How did you manage it?” he asked, looking back to his father. “During the Blight?”
Vaere smiled, shaking his head. “I didn’t.”
Kieran snorted a little. “More lessons from experience?”
Vaere sighed and pushed away from the table, pulling a crate up opposite Kieran to sit. “I drank until I blacked out most nights, back then. Found myself in the tent of whoever would let me in that night. I don’t remember much of that year, year and a half, lad. Don’t do what I did. You’ll hurt yourself and everyone around you if you do.”
He ran fingers through his hair, revealing in the flickering candlelight the grey strands that had only just started appearing in the last few years, as his age finally caught up to him. “Morrigan and I had hoped you’d be better than me. Better than both of us. I can’t say we’ve done poorly on that front.” Not that they had done much, Vaere reasoned, and certainly not him.
Better. What did that even mean? They'd done the best they could in impossible circumstances. They hadn't had a perfect base in the Fade and a mirror network to cross Thedas in a blink. They hadn't had people ready and raring to help them. They'd been on their own in a way Kieran had never been. He couldn't begin to imagine how hard it must have been.
“Mamae wasn't very happy when I turned up at Arlathan,” he admitted. “She had no idea I’d even left the Necropolis.”
Vaere smiled sadly. “Your mamae wanted some very specific things for you,” he said quietly, “and I think the world has gone and fucked that all up for her.”
“No kidding.” She hadn't wanted Flemeth to track them down and try to complete whatever destiny she'd had in mind for him before he was even born. She definitely hadn't wanted him wound up with Solas stuck in his head, facing down Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan, somehow responsible for this rebellion after however many thousand years it had just lain dormant. “But it's hard just to imagine sitting around while all this was going on. You're here, again,” he pointed out.
Vaere grimaced. “Yeah. Weisshaupt wasn’t doing shit and no one else was going to step up to help.” And the letters from Anders and Nathaniel had been nervous and panicked respectively. It was enough to put an edge to his concerns.
He glanced at the reports on the desk, and then to the door. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to your friends and then I’ll go to sleep too.”
Kieran sighed but relented, getting back to his feet and letting his father lead him back towards his cot. “So much for catching up on what we missed,” he noted, weariness already tugging on his limbs again. Perhaps taking a couple of days to rest wouldn't be the end of the world. Figurative or literal. “Turns out it's hard to find moments amidst all… this.”
Vaere stepped closer, wrapping his arm around Kieran’s shoulders to tug him into a one-armed hug. “It is,” he agreed, “but you’ve not gone to bed just yet. So talk to me, lad, while we’re both still on our feet.”
“Where to start?” he wondered, leaning his head into his shoulder and savouring the warmth that came from him. “I doubt you heard about the War of the Banners up here, but that's why I got encouraged to leave the Necropolis. If you thought Orlesian nobles were petty, just imagine undead ones.”
“Oh?”
“Oh yeah. Grudges can be centuries old. These dead nobles just kept coming back and stirring up all the undead to re-enact their old wars, and this spilled over into new fighting, and…” He shrugged. “It was stupid, frankly. The Watchers couldn't do anything too drastic because of the living nobility getting pulled into it and picking sides, so I just… took a team and took out the leaders.” Like Babae had with the archdemon. Let the skeleton hordes return to their graves. “That's where I met Varric again. He was with the Inquisition, when I'd been there with Mamae. And since I’d known Solas too, he asked me if I'd help track him down.”
Vaere had met Solas once. No, twice. Maybe thrice. He couldn’t recall the exact amount, the dreams fleeting, entirely unable to be pinned down. “To get you out of the way of the trouble you were causing?” he asked dryly.
“Yeah.” He smiled. “By pointing me at an even bigger pile of trouble.” The smile couldn't linger long, though, sliding back into a slight grimace. “I wasn't expecting him to leave me in charge, though. I wasn't prepared for it. I just feel like I'm stumbling from one thing to another.”
Vaere squeezed Kieran’s shoulder. “You may be stumbling from one thing to another,” he said, pointedly repeating the words, “but remember, your friends, your allies, they may not see that you’re doing that. They just know you’re coming when they need help.”
He stopped, before they could rejoin the main room of Wardens. Looked up to his father's face. “Did you hear about Minrathous?” he asked quietly. “I… had to go to Treviso. The dragon would have Blighted it. I couldn't… but Minrathous paid the price for it. I don't know-” He swallowed hard around the painful lump in his throat. “I don't know how I'm supposed to make that kind of decision?”
A grim, knowing look overtook Vaere’s face. He squeezed Kieran’s shoulder again. “When I was your age,” he said softly, “I killed a boy. Nine or ten years old. He was possessed. Redcliffe would have been overrun if I hadn’t done it.”
He turned to face Kieran, resting both of his hands on his son’s shoulders. “Every choice you make,” Vaere said in the same soft tone, “it will haunt you. Every damn night. Every time you look at something that reminds you of the choice you made, it will hurt. But you cannot let that stop you from doing what you need to. What is right to do. Yeah?”
That was definitely a story he hadn't heard. He wondered how many stories from the Blight his father had never told him. Could never tell a young boy. Would never want to tell his son.
What rotten luck their family had.
Still, a thought was enough to tug a small smile to his face. “I'm definitely your son, then,” he noted, with a lightness in the face of the thickness in his throat. “I guess this kind of thing runs in the family.”
Vaere chuckled. “You look more and more like me every day,” he said fondly. “Definitely more handsome.”
He paused. “Do not tell your mamae I said that.”
Kieran snorted a laugh, and leaned in to hug him, arms wrapped all the way round him and squeezing him tight. “Thank you Babae,” he said quietly. “I'm glad you're here.”
His chin tucked atop Kieran’s head, Vaere smiled and kissed his temple. “I love you, lad. I’ll be here whenever you need me.”
“Which is probably going to be a lot, with all this Blight about.” Especially since his own magic was so damn useless at fighting it. He pulled a face. “Don't suppose you know any fire magic?”
Vaere shook his head. “No. Not really my thing.” But maybe… “Have you been to Rivain, Kieran?”
He couldn't help but laugh again. “Just got back,” he said. “Recruited a Qunari firebreather, if you can believe it.”
Vaere mirrored his smile. “I was going to recommend speaking to an old ally. Isabela. If you see her… tell her I say hello.”
“Will do.” It felt like he was meeting all of Thedas these days. “I’m going to go get some more sleep. See you in the morning?”
“See you in the morning, lad.” Vaere kissed his forehead like he had when he was but a boy. “Sleep well, Kieran.”
He returned to his cot with a warm glow in his chest that was strangely familiar. It took settling back against the lumpy mattress and pulling up the woolen blanket to place it - it was the same feeling he’d had as a boy, when his father had tucked him in and told him stories until he fell asleep. He could almost smell the sweet smoke from the fire, when Mamae would scatter it with herbs to help him sleep, and hear the soft snores of Ghilan the mabari in the next room.
Assan cracked an eye to watch him settle back down, and as Kieran glanced over at him, Davrin cracked an eye as well. “Everything all right, Rook?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.
“Yeah,” Kieran promised, “All good.”
Davrin snorted a laugh, already halfway back to sleep. “Makes a nice change.”
Kieran laughed quietly at that as well, and settled down and closed his eyes. Within minutes he was asleep, under dark and Blighted skies, but with the promise of stars remaining above.