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Gwynne liked Skyhold the best at night. When it was quieter. There was a peace to the empty courtyard and bailey. Not that these places were deserted, there were always people moving. A low buzz of voices that never went completely away. The sentries walking the battlements were shadows in the cool night air. Gwynne walked down the steps into the courtyard, turned right passing underneath them and down another flight of steps into the bailey. She could have taken a shortcut through the Keep but she needed the sharpness of the mountain air. Things were heating up in this crazy campaign and they seem to be happening too quickly. They had victory at Halamshiral. Celene was firmly in power. Her attempted assassin was dead. Gaspard was set to be executed. Briala, well, who could say. Gwynne had tried.
There was another mage at Skyhold, she made the former circle mages look like housecats. Gwynne stopped and looked up at the sky. It was exceptionally clear, brilliant and crystal sharp. Up this far in the mountains the stars looked like glass. Sometimes she thought she could shatter them if she yelled loud enough. Maker knew she had plenty of reason to scream lately. Gwynne moved her gaze back to her path and noticed that she was at the barn. Again. Why her steps always led her here she couldn’t fathom. She veered over to the kitchen steps and the large boulder that they curved around. Sitting on the rock she stared at the barn as if she could see through the rough wooden planks to the lone warden within. Drawing her legs up, she hugged her knees and rested her chin on top. She should have known that man was going to be trouble.
Gwynne exhaled and closed her eyes. She remembered the way the sun glanced off the water of the large pond and she had heard his voice before she saw him. His voice was strong and rough. A voice used to shouting across battlefields. Giving commands. There was something underneath that voice as well. It sounded resigned, tired sort of yet not quite. She couldn’t quite place it. She called out his name as she crossed the small clearing in front of the cabin where he was instructing some scared looking farm boys. He looked confused, and asked how she knew his name, as she wasn’t a farmer. Just as suddenly he flung up his shield, and an arrow appeared as if conjured. He tried to freeze her with a look.
“That’s it,” he spat “we are dealing with these idiots first, help or get out!” With a roar he charged the bandits that fired the arrow and the battle was on. It took only moments, it couldn’t even be properly called a skirmish. Gwynne cleaned off her broadsword while the warden spoke to the farm boys about how thieves were made not born, to take back what they stole and to go home. She swung her sword back into the sheath strapped to her back. Then it turned out that Warden Blackwall didn’t know anything about why his colleagues were disappearing. Or what had happened at the conclave.
Gwynne was frustrated and angry and just wanted to go back to Haven at this point. She had never been one for court intrigue. She left that to her older siblings. They seemed to feed off that rubbish. Trying to talk to the Chantry sister in the Crossroads was just as futile as trying to talk to her family. She was sick of it all and they had barely started. Blackwall had decided to come with them and join the Inquisition.
Gwynne found herself spending more time in Blackwall’s company. He was a soldier, he understood some things that Bull didn’t. Blackwall was a no nonsense type, he was quiet and sturdy. Solid.
Cullen wasn’t quite the same. He thrummed with tension. There were always people around him. He was handsome if you liked that golden type, but to Gwynne it seemed raw and sharp. Blackwall’s edges had been smoothed a long time ago. He didn’t seem like he had as much to prove. With Cullen there was a haunted aspect to his eyes. Gwynne recognized it from countless cousins that had the same look. She called it “Lyrium Hunger”. Cullen would always have a gap in his armor, a place for someone to pry and possibly break him. Gwynne didn’t think she could handle that. Just too much rawness for her. She wasn’t green, she knew the dangers that Templar’s faced. Her family had been pushing her to take up the Templar banner.
This conclave was the last straw as far as her family was concerned. Before she had left, her father had called her into his study and gave her an ultimatum: find a suitable husband or join the Templars. It took everything Gwynne had not to laugh in Teryn Trevelyan’s face. She was too old to join the order, and marriage? Babies? Never. Not even if the Maker himself descended from on high and ordered it. Gwynne was a warrior. Someone her family needed to keep the house guards in line. Did her father actually think his Captain of the Guard was worth nug shit? It was all her.
“You will go to this conclave,” he told her “and you will give me your decision when you get back. A husband, Gwynneth, or the Order.” He then turned his attention back to his ledger books, his youngest child no longer in his thoughts. Not that she had been in them much. She knew exactly why too. She heard the whispers. An older cousin had called her “elf-blooded” to her face. Her mother said it was all nonsense. It pained bother her parents she knew. They were very religious, half the family could have been considered zealots. She couldn’t help it she didn’t look like the rest of them. The Trevelyan’s could have been molded from the earth itself. Tan skin, brown hair and dark eyes. When they were all together Gwynne looked like a bit of bleached bone in a field of rich fertile soil. She was practically colorless, except for her strange purple eyes.
There had been one boy from Starkhaven that didn’t snicker at her. He flattered her and said she looked carved from alabaster. Flowery compliments rained from his lips and she was dry ground. He told her that his family was sending him into Chantry service and she was his last hope before being forced into a life of celibacy. She had been beaten down by her siblings that she threw herself at him. He took what he wanted and she never heard from him again. Gwynne had been seventeen when that happened. She had been a fool. She pushed those memories away, no sense in dwelling on past stupidity. She had thrown herself in to weapons training with an abandon that pleased her teachers and angered the other students. By then she didn’t care what the others thought of her. She was good at sword play. She could toss her large two handed broadsword around as if it weighted nothing. It did weigh something. It was made of obsidian; shiny, black and smoother than glass. She was fond of it, but not so fond that she wouldn’t pick up another blade and use it if necessary.
Gwynne shifted on the rock trying to find a more comfortable spot. Her butt was starting to get numb. She shook her head at the memories of others who were overly attached to their blades. They were mostly Orlesian’s. So not that it was surprising. She sighed and came out of her musings.
Gwynne opened her eyes and looked at the barn again. She could see the lit fire between the cracks and it would occasionally wink out as the object of her thoughts paced in front of it. She recalled the last time she had talked to Blackwall. He had been injured enough that he needed to recuperate back at Skyhold. Gwynne was worried. It had been a nasty wound. Blackwall had laughed at her worry. He’d had worse before. She wanted to remind him that he had also been younger then too. But she didn’t. After seeing that he was settled, she grabbed Bull and went back out. Gwynne couldn’t help but think of him so far away and hoped he was healing ok.
She got the rifts in Crestwood closed. Met Warden Stroud and headed back to the keep to figure what the next course of action would be. Stroud had told her about the calling and how it was affecting all the Wardens. This caused that seventeen year old girl that lived inside her head to get worked up. She began to fret that this is what Blackwall meant when he said they had no future. That they couldn’t live for themselves.
Gwynne stood up. No. She was determined to carve out something, anything for herself in all this damn chaos. She had been pushed by other people’s choices her entire life. No more she wasn’t going let anyone she couldn’t have this one small thing. She shook the hair out of her eyes and strode toward the barn.