He may not have dissolved the Inquisition, but publicly he is no longer at it's helm. After spending some time with his friends and the Divine, Cyril Lavellan retired to the Free Marches. He spent most of his time after that going between Wycome and Kirkwall.
At Wycome, he's with his Clan, aiding as much as he can to strengthening their foothold there. It's reassuring to be with them again, to be helping directly. They had faced what had to be certain death and he had only been there in letters and by spending people in his stead. At least he had saved them. Every moment with them is precious, even more because they don't treat him like he's incapable.
At Kirkwall, he lives in the estate that Varric set aside for him. At least Varric hadn't been lying about it being 'pretty nice.' He gets a massive and sturdy four poster bed and a lot of books. He hires a couple servants. People who know worry because they're elven, but if Fen'Harel wanted to infiltrate his home, he could be welcome there is person. Honestly, a part of Cyril hopes that they're his agents. He can't convince Solas to change his mind without some sort of contact.
He still works behind the scenes, both as a Red Jenny with Sera and unofficially the others. He can't give up the fight completely, not when his friend is in such a dark place. Not when he could do whatever possible to try and save the world.
His arm still hurts sometimes, others he swears he can still feel the missing hand. When he's not working he's home, building things that he can use to replace it. His pride and joy is a cross bow that had attachments that can be switched between a grapple hook and arrows.
He shows it to anyone who sits still long enough to give him time to explain how it works.
Keeper Deshanna has been in town as often as not, being too ill to travel constantly and therefore keeping a house in-town and leaving Pel to run day-to-day things at camp. Pel has done this in her own workaholic fashion, barely sitting down to rest while preparing for the winter. When Cy arrives, she is in the midst of pickling wild vegetables. No magic, just pickling. Everyone, even a First, has to lend a hand where that hand is needed, and today it is needed to pickle vegetables for their winter stores.
"Come put the stoppers on these crocks for me, will you?" she asks without preamble as he approaches.
Cyril just grins and then sets to work. He enjoys that there isn't a lot of ceremony at his appearance. He had gotten a little too used to that and the lack of it grounds him instantly.
He has a basic prosthetic on today that lets him hold things in place a bit easier but the work is still slower than he used to be.
"So," he says finally, after he's made some headway into the task. "How are things?"
Cyril keeps his home in Kirkwall open to Bull whenever the Chargers are near the city. In his head he considers the estate as much Bull's as it is his, but he hasn't really put words to it. He had drafted a will that left everything to Bull, but he's kept that to himself.
It's a couple days after Bull has returned from whatever adventures the Chargers had recently enjoyed. Cyril expects Bull to be gone most of the day, tending to his boys and probably having more than a couple drinks with them. He spends his time working on his cross bow. He thinks he can almost get it working properly.
Doing the work with one hand makes it a bit slower, but he sets up a rig to make it easier. What he doesn't expect is for a spring to snap up force a bit of the set up to hit him in the face.
The cut that appears along his nose and below his eye stings and bleeds. Cy is cursing loudly from his workroom when Bull comes home a bit earlier than expected. He digs through his desk to find a clean cloth he can press to the wound to make the bleeding stop.
She pauses long enough to direct a soft smile his way. It can be hard for the untrained and/or uninformed to know when Pel is actually happy, and she's been making efforts to combat her case of resting bitchface lately.
"Busy. At least...a good kind of busy. Just a normal late autumn. It's nice."
She raises her wind-chapped face to the woods ahead, squinting in the sun. Her silver hair is braided loosely over one shoulder, some strands catching in the breeze.
"Even the halla have been somewhat lazy. Their coats are getting so thick. It's going to be a cold winter."
Cyril watches him for a moment, because there's something so comforting about being in her presence and seeing how she has settled into this place and this life. He wants to hug her but he doesn't come any closer, still too wound up in his own emotional shields.
"I can have people bring things in, since it has to be harder to hunt for furs when you're stuck in one place."
"It is," Pel answers, cramming a few more okra into a crock before sliding it to Cy to be corked. "Most of the good game has either been hunted or frightened off. We've started some trade with the shemlen to make ends meet, but it would be good to know for sure that we're going to be warm enough during the winter. Thank you."
Cyril frowns a bit at that. He worries every day that the only reason they're stuck here is because of his place in the Inquisition, but at least he can also use that left over influence to prepare for them.
"Is there anything else you need, lethallan?" he asks, quietly. He feels the weight of all that he knows for a moment, things he doesn't think he can very fully talk about. He realizes he wants to tell her so badly about the gods, but he isn't sure how many details she'll believe.
The last crock is corked. Pel looks at Cyril closely now, hearing the change in his tone. He wants to be of use, so let him.
"Walk with me, lethallin?" Out of sheer habit, she reaches to hook her arm around his. His is truncated now, and a little different even with the prosthetic, but it still conveys what she needs: she is not really asking. Off they go.
He nods and lets her tug him along, knowing better than to try to debate. "Of course," he says, as he is led. He also can't help but feel comforted that she easily takes his arm without hesitation. It's nice to remember that some will always see him as whole.
Pel has always seen Cyril as younger, in spite of him being a year her senior. It was only because of the fact that he was hanging out with that younger crowd, and she was raised to be a Keeper since she was a toddler. It's hard not to treat him as being as young as Merrick or Lulwen, especially given his attitude.
When they're away from the camp, she speaks gently.
"If you want to spend some time with us, you always have a place here. If you're homesick, I mean. We've all missed you so much."
It didn't help at all that Cyril liked being thought of as younger than he was, but now he was 30 and it too much had happened to let him remain completely care free.
"Thank you," he says. "I thought that would be the case, but it's comforting to hear."
"Quite a bit," he admits after a moment. "The Inquisition... We discovered a Temple to Mythall deep within the Arbor Wilds a couple years ago. Have you head of that?" If he was honest, he wasn't sure just how much what had happened had filtered through to elves who weren't directly involved.
Pel's version of a double take is slow. The first take is a flickering of her eyelids. The second is her head sinking forward and tilting a bit, to give a nice, quiet are you kidding me? message.
"You found a temple of our people from the time of Halamshiral and you didn't write home about it?" she asks quietly, as if offering him the benefit of the doubt only one time, and if refused, it will not be offered again.
Cyril shakes his head. "It... it wasn't what you think." He pauses, forming his words carefully. She knows him, he can see the walls starting to go up. The walls he usually builds to protect himself from pain or disappointment. She can also probably tell that if he doesn't get all of this out, he'll close up completely.
"It wasn't what we were taught. There were ancient elves there, sentinels who served Mythal. They rejected me as one of their people and told us that it wasn't the Tevinter Imperium that had destroyed the elves. We did it to ourselves. Later, while in the Fade, I met Mythal... and Asha'belannar. They are one in the same. The spirit of Mythal attached itself to Asha'belannar. That's how she has survived so many years and why she is such a part of legend."
She doesn't think he's mad. Logically, it all seems sound. If ancient elves were indeed immortal, it's possible some are still around, and rejection of their diminished kin would be why they haven't come back and taught their descendants how it's really done. Asha'belannar has always been a friend of the People, and this would explain why.
"So...she's heard us. All this time, she's heard our prayers, and that's why she watches over us."
Something in her chest gives way, a sort of lightness creeping in.
"The Creators haven't been completely lost. There's at least one who has come back."
Cyril sighed a bit. It was a deep frustration that he only felt when it came to talking about the gods. Even before he had learned everything, he had never fully understood the pious. At least it wasn't directed at her, it never was, only at his own inability to relate on this one thing. He feels like he should have known that she would respond like this.
"No lethallan. No, that's not what happened at all. Mythal was killed by the others. Her spirit raged against the other elves. She only found Asha'belannar because they were both so wounded. She expressed regret at not being about to help the remnants of her people, but I got the impression she didn't try very hard to aid us." He pauses, just for a moment. There's no bitterness in his voice, only truth. "None of them see us as elves. We are sundered to them, cut off from our past lives, as unnatural to them as a Tranquil appears to us.
The Veil destroyed that aspect of who we once were. It was created by Fen'Harel to punish them for killing her, and now it's the reason none of them see us as whole." He pauses, for a moment, because he realizes he's getting ahead of himself.
"I met him too, The Dread Wolf. Even befriended him."
Pel is listening. She's listening with incredible intent. But she's not seeing. Her eyes have gone glassy. It would be one thing to hear that there was proof of the Creators' non-existence, but to hear that they existed and did not give any more shits about the elves as anyone else is something she could never have prepared for.
She bows her head, letting stray strands of hair obscure her face.
"Don't lie," she whispers. "Don't hold anything back, Cy. If you're playing a trick, it's cruel. Crueler than I know you to be. If it's true, tell me everything."
He reaches out to touch her arm, just briefly, and then takes a deep breath. After that, he takes deep breath and then tells her. He tells her everything he knows about Solas, about Flemeth, about the temples he found, both to Mythal and to the Dread Wolf. He tells her about the revaluations about the slaves that had been kept by those posing as gods.
More than anything he tells about the Evanuris and the things he learned from Solas. He hesitates only in telling her about the danger, but even then he has to share that. He has to prepare his clan for what is to come.
When he's done, quite a bit of time has passed. His throat is sore and so is his arm. His remaining hand reaches up to touch the place where his arm connects to the prosthetic as he waits for her reaction.
There are tears in her eyes at points, but she keeps swallowing the lump in her throat and blinking her eyes dry. There is a long, long silence after Cy finishes talking. Pel eventually takes his arm again and starts walking him further into the woods. The clan can't see or hear their First when she's in this state, trying to lock away a pain her little body can't contain.
She stops fighting the tears. It's a while before one falls, and quietly wipes it away. The only sounds she makes are sniffles and shaking breaths.
Eventually, they come to a creek, cold and littered with fallen leaves. Only now does Pel release Cyril. Following some rumble of white noise in her head rather than a train of thought--thinking is too deafening to be allowed right now--she begins to undress. Off comes her outer coat, the wide sash, the tunic beneath. Leggings are shed and kicked away.
"Come on," she mutters, padding naked over the grass and over the bank. Without waiting for him, she jumps into the deepest part of the creek. Water closes over her head, and the resulting shock to her system wakes every nerve in her and banishes the fog like a torrent of wind.
Cyril follows and then removes his clothes. He also unstraps the prosthetic so that he's exposed completely. The arm doesn't have as deep of scar like you might expect, the skin is almost smooth. The removal had been magical and it shows.
He gets into the water then and swims up to her, using his legs more than anything. He still has to get used to swimming with one arm but he manages.
"You're still one of the only women I'll get naked with," he teases gently as he gets closer, because joking during a serious moment is how he handles things.
She's standing and shuddering, still overcome with the shock of the cold water. But it helps, piercing the cloud in her head.
"Mythal'enaste, it's cold." She shivers, but does not climb out, instead starting to tread water. "Puts things in perspective. Our gods hate us and want us dead later, but the water's cold now."
Her breath shudders, and it's not just the cold.
"I prayed to her. She couldn't even hear me. She was just a mage like me all along. I prayed that she would teach me how to protect my people and she doesn't want us any more than the rest of the world wants us."
Tears are back, hot tears against cold skin, and she's shivering hard, cold and rage and grief.
"Is there one person in this fucking world or the next that doesn't wish we were gone? Why do we have to fight so hard to get less life than everybody else, Cy, why are we fighting so hard when nobody wants us and everybody wants to purge us like vermin, even our own gods?"
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TRESPASSER SPOILERS WHOA
Date: 2015-09-15 08:37 pm (UTC)From:At Wycome, he's with his Clan, aiding as much as he can to strengthening their foothold there. It's reassuring to be with them again, to be helping directly. They had faced what had to be certain death and he had only been there in letters and by spending people in his stead. At least he had saved them. Every moment with them is precious, even more because they don't treat him like he's incapable.
At Kirkwall, he lives in the estate that Varric set aside for him. At least Varric hadn't been lying about it being 'pretty nice.' He gets a massive and sturdy four poster bed and a lot of books. He hires a couple servants. People who know worry because they're elven, but if Fen'Harel wanted to infiltrate his home, he could be welcome there is person. Honestly, a part of Cyril hopes that they're his agents. He can't convince Solas to change his mind without some sort of contact.
He still works behind the scenes, both as a Red Jenny with Sera and unofficially the others. He can't give up the fight completely, not when his friend is in such a dark place. Not when he could do whatever possible to try and save the world.
His arm still hurts sometimes, others he swears he can still feel the missing hand. When he's not working he's home, building things that he can use to replace it. His pride and joy is a cross bow that had attachments that can be switched between a grapple hook and arrows.
He shows it to anyone who sits still long enough to give him time to explain how it works.
Wycome
Date: 2015-09-15 08:58 pm (UTC)From:"Come put the stoppers on these crocks for me, will you?" she asks without preamble as he approaches.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-15 09:05 pm (UTC)From:He has a basic prosthetic on today that lets him hold things in place a bit easier but the work is still slower than he used to be.
"So," he says finally, after he's made some headway into the task. "How are things?"
BULL
Date: 2015-09-15 09:09 pm (UTC)From:It's a couple days after Bull has returned from whatever adventures the Chargers had recently enjoyed. Cyril expects Bull to be gone most of the day, tending to his boys and probably having more than a couple drinks with them. He spends his time working on his cross bow. He thinks he can almost get it working properly.
Doing the work with one hand makes it a bit slower, but he sets up a rig to make it easier. What he doesn't expect is for a spring to snap up force a bit of the set up to hit him in the face.
The cut that appears along his nose and below his eye stings and bleeds. Cy is cursing loudly from his workroom when Bull comes home a bit earlier than expected. He digs through his desk to find a clean cloth he can press to the wound to make the bleeding stop.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-15 11:05 pm (UTC)From:"Busy. At least...a good kind of busy. Just a normal late autumn. It's nice."
She raises her wind-chapped face to the woods ahead, squinting in the sun. Her silver hair is braided loosely over one shoulder, some strands catching in the breeze.
"Even the halla have been somewhat lazy. Their coats are getting so thick. It's going to be a cold winter."
no subject
Date: 2015-09-15 11:10 pm (UTC)From:"I can have people bring things in, since it has to be harder to hunt for furs when you're stuck in one place."
no subject
Date: 2015-09-15 11:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-09-16 11:14 pm (UTC)From:"Is there anything else you need, lethallan?" he asks, quietly. He feels the weight of all that he knows for a moment, things he doesn't think he can very fully talk about. He realizes he wants to tell her so badly about the gods, but he isn't sure how many details she'll believe.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-16 11:56 pm (UTC)From:"Walk with me, lethallin?" Out of sheer habit, she reaches to hook her arm around his. His is truncated now, and a little different even with the prosthetic, but it still conveys what she needs: she is not really asking. Off they go.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 02:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 03:36 am (UTC)From:When they're away from the camp, she speaks gently.
"If you want to spend some time with us, you always have a place here. If you're homesick, I mean. We've all missed you so much."
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 03:42 am (UTC)From:"Thank you," he says. "I thought that would be the case, but it's comforting to hear."
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 03:45 am (UTC)From:She's poking around, trying to figure out what's bothering him and how she can help.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 03:48 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 12:25 pm (UTC)From:"What happened?" she asks softly.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 08:37 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 09:11 pm (UTC)From:"You found a temple of our people from the time of Halamshiral and you didn't write home about it?" she asks quietly, as if offering him the benefit of the doubt only one time, and if refused, it will not be offered again.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 09:24 pm (UTC)From:"It wasn't what we were taught. There were ancient elves there, sentinels who served Mythal. They rejected me as one of their people and told us that it wasn't the Tevinter Imperium that had destroyed the elves. We did it to ourselves. Later, while in the Fade, I met Mythal... and Asha'belannar. They are one in the same. The spirit of Mythal attached itself to Asha'belannar. That's how she has survived so many years and why she is such a part of legend."
He steels himself expecting her to think him mad.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 09:36 pm (UTC)From:"So...she's heard us. All this time, she's heard our prayers, and that's why she watches over us."
Something in her chest gives way, a sort of lightness creeping in.
"The Creators haven't been completely lost. There's at least one who has come back."
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 10:52 pm (UTC)From:"No lethallan. No, that's not what happened at all. Mythal was killed by the others. Her spirit raged against the other elves. She only found Asha'belannar because they were both so wounded. She expressed regret at not being about to help the remnants of her people, but I got the impression she didn't try very hard to aid us." He pauses, just for a moment. There's no bitterness in his voice, only truth. "None of them see us as elves. We are sundered to them, cut off from our past lives, as unnatural to them as a Tranquil appears to us.
The Veil destroyed that aspect of who we once were. It was created by Fen'Harel to punish them for killing her, and now it's the reason none of them see us as whole." He pauses, for a moment, because he realizes he's getting ahead of himself.
"I met him too, The Dread Wolf. Even befriended him."
keywords
Date: 2015-09-18 12:22 am (UTC)From:She bows her head, letting stray strands of hair obscure her face.
"Don't lie," she whispers. "Don't hold anything back, Cy. If you're playing a trick, it's cruel. Crueler than I know you to be. If it's true, tell me everything."
oh pel. /pets
Date: 2015-09-18 12:45 am (UTC)From:More than anything he tells about the Evanuris and the things he learned from Solas. He hesitates only in telling her about the danger, but even then he has to share that. He has to prepare his clan for what is to come.
When he's done, quite a bit of time has passed. His throat is sore and so is his arm. His remaining hand reaches up to touch the place where his arm connects to the prosthetic as he waits for her reaction.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-18 12:56 am (UTC)From:She stops fighting the tears. It's a while before one falls, and quietly wipes it away. The only sounds she makes are sniffles and shaking breaths.
Eventually, they come to a creek, cold and littered with fallen leaves. Only now does Pel release Cyril. Following some rumble of white noise in her head rather than a train of thought--thinking is too deafening to be allowed right now--she begins to undress. Off comes her outer coat, the wide sash, the tunic beneath. Leggings are shed and kicked away.
"Come on," she mutters, padding naked over the grass and over the bank. Without waiting for him, she jumps into the deepest part of the creek. Water closes over her head, and the resulting shock to her system wakes every nerve in her and banishes the fog like a torrent of wind.
She emerges with a yell and a gasp, then a laugh.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-18 01:05 am (UTC)From:He gets into the water then and swims up to her, using his legs more than anything. He still has to get used to swimming with one arm but he manages.
"You're still one of the only women I'll get naked with," he teases gently as he gets closer, because joking during a serious moment is how he handles things.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-18 01:21 am (UTC)From:"Mythal'enaste, it's cold." She shivers, but does not climb out, instead starting to tread water. "Puts things in perspective. Our gods hate us and want us dead later, but the water's cold now."
Her breath shudders, and it's not just the cold.
"I prayed to her. She couldn't even hear me. She was just a mage like me all along. I prayed that she would teach me how to protect my people and she doesn't want us any more than the rest of the world wants us."
Tears are back, hot tears against cold skin, and she's shivering hard, cold and rage and grief.
"Is there one person in this fucking world or the next that doesn't wish we were gone? Why do we have to fight so hard to get less life than everybody else, Cy, why are we fighting so hard when nobody wants us and everybody wants to purge us like vermin, even our own gods?"
Tears are rolling freely down her face.