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Absence was unfathomable to Dalgar. He could never quite feel its edges, to get the measure of it, to grasp its… enormity. Or maybe it was that absence was just like smoke—impossible to hold fast and carried away on the wind, in time.
He breathed deep the scent of damp soil and growing things. It was deceptively comfortable in the conservatory.
The light was sort of wrong, sure, but the furniture was all where it was supposed to be. The writing desk held a few unsent letters. The comfy old chair was angled just so. The subtle warmth of the potted herbs lingered like the scent of last night’s stew around the hearth, its embers long since cooled; the heady mix of flowering plants from across Thedas brought memories of exploring new forests and fields, each marvelous in its own way. Scattered vials and multicolored jars all glittered in the half-light of the eclipse, the untested and incomplete impressions of a curious mind.
The conservatory was full of a life and its echoes. Nothing here had changed much. Harding just stepped out to the kitchen—she’d be right back! But she hadn’t—and she wouldn’t.
At first, Dalgar had sat in the same old chair as always but, after a little while, he realized that he couldn’t stomach that much normalcy. Now, he sat on the floor with his arms resting on his knees, appropriately out of place between Harding’s tent and the chair he’d abandoned. It made sense that both should remain empty. Harding was gone, after all.
He had to keep reminding himself of that. Harding was dead, just like Varric.
Maker, a part of Dalgar still ached to be back in that haze; it disturbed him to admit it, even if only to himself, but he would be able to hold onto them both, then, just as they were. He needed to save the way Harding’s nose scrunched when he made her laugh, and the timbre and cadence of Varric’s voice when he started a story after a few drinks. His furrowed brow when he’d stare Dalgar down over a hand of Wicked Grace. The way he smelled of spicy cologne and sweat. Harding smelled like warm beeswax, wool, and crushed leaves.
The illusion almost seemed worth it for these precious things he knew he would forget. He’d forgotten them before. He was forgetting right now. One day, there’d be nothing left to forget, and he’d just be left with this Absence where they used to be.
For a storyteller, Varric never really liked people badgering him for stories about his old friends, but once in a while he would bring them up on his own, out of blue, and you could believe he’d only just seen them yesterday. That he would see them tomorrow. Those stories were Varric’s kind of magic—an illusion of a different sort. By contrast, Dalgar's father never mentioned his mother again after she'd died, and she had rotted away until only a gap remained in his memories. A ghost of cool hands over his forehead. The scent of lavender—
“Oh—” Taash lingered awkwardly on the threshold. Their mouth worked and their brows crushed together, but they couldn’t seem to form any words. Neither could he. Guiltily, he watched them turn and head back the way they came in silence.
Shit. Dalgar stuffed all these thoughts back in the box they came from. Casilda. Olivier. Varric. Harding. So many Wardens and the people of Minrathous. Now, Bellara… he needed to see Neve. There would be time for him to sit with his memories later—or there wouldn’t be time for anything anymore.