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The opera house is loud. Not with applause or grand performance as it’s meant to be, though one could definitely call Illario’s attempt at taking over the last act of a tragedy. Or a happy end to a hero’s journey, him forever a side character to someone else’s story.
As Illario kneels, Lucanis stands before him with Rook by his side. The gash he left in her shoulder is still bleeding, and her eyes have the most hatred for him in the entire room despite knowing him the least. Whatever stayed her blade, stayed it just barely — in battle, she was moments away from running that mageknife through his heart. They both know it.
I should’ve let her, he thinks. Whatever comes next will be worse.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Lucanis asks.
Why don’t you try asking Caterina? When Illario tries to speak, only a groan comes out, so he puts the vitriol meant for his voice into the eyes instead, hoping it conveys. Maybe she could be the second Dellamorte who sends another one to death. Won’t we sleep better at night knowing it simply runs in the family?
“I have a suggestion.”
Illario twitches at the sound of a voice entirely unfamiliar. When he raises his head, he sees the heavy-armoured elf Rook and Lucanis brought along, whose name eludes him. The abundance of blue and grey and the gaudy griffon head on his shield suggest he’s another warden. Rook keeps familiar company.
“I’m conscripting him into the Grey Wardens.”
Next, the opera house stills.
The sound is reborn in whispers that all carry the same shock. Lucanis stays quiet with an impenetrable expression as Rook looks at the elf with one that’s much clearer: disapproval. Like a lifeline, Illario clings to the hope that the right of conscription holds some hidden rule requiring all wardens present to agree to force someone to come with them. The opposite is the worst way he could imagine the evening end.
“You will do no such thing.”
Caterina’s voice cuts in suddenly, drowning out everything else and prompting him to stand up even before Viago pulls him to. The sound of her cane echoes the childhood memory of hearing No one from House Dellamorte kneels, the notion planted into him by the same cane against his back and the voice that accepted no objections.
“He is my grandson,” Caterina continues. “This matter will be handled by the Antivan Crows.”
“Actually, the Warden authority supersedes your own,” Rook objects. Illario can’t believe the enthusiasm in her voice when he hears it, much less the words coming with it. “Or anyone else in this room, for that matter. Doesn’t it, Davrin?” She nods to the elf.
Davrin, Illario repeats to himself. What did I do to that “Davrin” to deserve this fate?
“He arranged to kill me and allied with the Venatori,” Lucanis spits. Illario spots the purple flickers dancing in his eyes and turns away, nauseous from another reminder of what he’d done. “And you want him in your order? After everything he’s done?”
“He’s as good as dead if he stays here, I wager,” Davrin says. I’ll be worse than dead, Illario mentally corrects, but keeps his silence. The wardens don’t seem any better than death, either. “You’ve seen what happened at Weisshaupt — the Wardens need people now more than ever. Killing him will be a waste of a good blade.”
“And,” Rook adds, “should he ever try, let’s say, anything, he’ll be dealt with. Promptly.”
Illario looks at Caterina. She speaks in demands, not suggestions, and never takes no for an answer. By his estimation, she must want him punished by her own hand more than she respects the ancient treaties, Grey Wardens, or Rook, and that Davrin as people. With that, he breathes easy; whatever this farce is, it’ll be over soon, and he’ll take his place at Velabanchel. There are no other ends in sight.
“Teia,” Caterina’s voice breaks up his thoughts once more, “arrange for two of your crows to accompany Illario with the wardens until he takes the Joining. I want him under supervision at all times.” What? “And,” she turns to Rook and Davrin, “if you suspect him of anything, he will be sent for judgment here. By our hand.”
“Will do.” Davrin comes up to take over for Viago, and Illario feels a grip much stronger than Viago’s but much less disgusted. Only there to keep him in place, not express any feelings while he’s at it. “Though I doubt we’ll see him try any time soon.”
They won’t.
He feels all strength leave him, resigned to this fate. Lucanis barely spares him a glance as he’s being led out, and Caterina looks aside, avoiding his eyes also. That’s how he will remember them — turning away before taking the matter into their own hands.
Whatever runs in this family is much more vile.
In all the thirty-six years of his life, he’s never seen a place as revolting as the Wetlands. It starts with the name, and never ends — the stench, the weather, the grime, and the outrageous distance from anything resembling civilisation do him in quicker than the Blight. The Cantori are usually considered the talkative bunch, but the pair assigned to him keep their distance and their silence; their eyes are the only thing saying anything, which is really just more contempt and the unspoken threat that even if Illario technically belongs to the Wardens, that doesn’t free him from the justice of the Crows.
On top of the discomfort of his dwelling and the sour company, they strip him of his sense of fashion, too. He is given only worn, unremarkable leathers, likely not deemed deserving of the grey, blue, and gaudy griffon heads before they blight him as insurance for his good behaviour.
“Your Joining will be tomorrow.” Davrin handles him alone. As soon as they left the opera house, Rook looked like she wanted nothing to do with Illario again. “Today, we are hunting.”
“For what?” one of the Cantori asks. She doesn’t seem to enjoy being here any more than he does, that’s for sure.
“Darkspawn. So you might want to sit this one out.”
“What, so it can be just the two of us?” Illario coos. “If you had wanted me for yourself, you could’ve just said so. So many easier ways we could make it happen.”
Flirting is his subconscious reaction to anything, second nature, but when Illario stops to think about his own words for a second, he must admit Davrin is attractive. Tall, fit, confident, if the deep cut of the shirt he wears in battle is anything to go by. It’s a thought he meets with certain indignation; had it not been for Davrin, he wouldn’t have been here at all.
(The only other person to blame is himself.)
“The blood’s for the Joining.” Ah. So they want me to get my own poison and drink it, too. Still, he can’t miss the way Davrin’s response isn’t immediate. Something must have passed in there, if only for a moment. “We won’t be going far, so I’d rather not bring any non-Warden fighters along. The new Blight is too infectious to risk it. Has to be Illario’s own kill anyway.”
His “guards” exchange a look, as if in a silent discussion. Davrin knows nothing about the minutia of the Crows — Illario wagers Lucanis kept their truest nature close to the chest — but if the Cantori know anything about the world around them, it’s that Illario has nowhere to run.
“Go on, then,” the older one says, turning to Illario. “Take care not to die out there, Dellamorte. Your cousin would be heartbroken to hear he never got to kill you himself.”
If only he had done just that.
“Thought you’d be chattier.”
Davrin walks in front, as if he, too, is now aware that Illario’s likelihood of running bubbles between zero and negative. Not even a little weariness around him; Illario has truly met the lowest of his lows.
“If you are yearning for gallows humour,” Illario responds, “I can provide some. But you’ll have to ask nicely.”
“We are not at the gallows.”
“Perdone, that was the closest I could think of to compare to inevitably dying from the Blight.”
“It’s not ine—” Davrin cuts himself off. “So you know, too. I should’ve guessed Lucanis would’ve shared.” Yes, and when he gave me up, he knew exactly what he signed me up for. “You damn crows know too much.”
“We happen to get around.” Illario allows himself to preen, much as the Crow life is so behind him he’d never be able to catch up. “And if we are so damned, as you say, why drag me here? Could’ve just kept your mouth shut. Less hassle.”
The question burns him — has been burning him since even before they left Antiva. Why, why, why. He could’ve understood someone who knew him condemning him to this, the slow death on the curve of a disgusting life. But not someone he had just met. What in the Maker’s gaping mouth did Lucanis tell his “friends” to set them up against him so?
“And don’t give me that paja about me being a good blade,” he adds.
“Doesn’t have to be whatever you just said it is.” Davrin shrugs. “I saw you in a fight. You are good — had to be good, to get Rook hurt.”
“You were in a room chock-full of experienced assassins. You could have anyone.” Illario does not let himself focus too much on the compliment before he gets off track. “But you go ahead and decide to get me, and possibly yourself, into trouble. So, I have to ask: why?”
The beast tailing them squawks out something, but Davrin says nothing in response, not to the griffon, not to Illario. He thinks of prodding him more — if he doesn’t get an answer, at least he can get a reaction — bring up the wardens and their death wishes, or if Davrin picked him for the pretty face, he really just should’ve said so. Anything to drown out the silence.
“You looked like you were trying to prove something back there,” Davrin says, finally. “To yourself, to the family.”
Illario wishes for the silence back. “And?”
“And it felt wrong to just leave that as is. That’s it.”
“So what, you took pity on me?” It’s a scoff and a sneer, everything he wishes he could go back and say that he had not. “Trying to give a poor, misguided boy a second chance at life to prove his worth? To make things right?”
“It is a second chance. But no one’s telling you what to do with it.”
“Well, you can take your chance and shove it up your—”
“Now, who wants some private time?”
Illario dashes forward, leaving the remark unattended. Davrin catches up only insofar that the distance between them doesn’t stretch too long, but lets it stay. Nothing about it is as Illario wants; it’s like he never left Antiva.
Soon enough, they find a darkspawn. A solitary ghoul limps forward, an arm missing and guts dragging across the ground. It has fresh bite and claw marks all over, signifying the fight must have been recent; whatever creature left them in the fight for its life at least will not be outlived by much.
The ghoul falls onto the ground headfirst before it reaches them. Illario presses the boot into its back, pushing it down; the rules say it must be his kill, but no one mentioned it must be his fight entirely. At least, they had not before, and he is not about to seek out an honourable loophole.
He slices across the creature’s rotting skin, hitting the vein with the source of his second chance.
It, too, smells rotten.
They do not speak again before the Joining, and most certainly don’t talk during it. He takes it alone, accompanied only by Davrin and a dwarven woman named Evka, whom he immediately pegs as the unspoken leader of the bunch. Not for the reasons of reverence, but to know who to complain to when he inevitably finds something to complain about. If he survives.
As she hands him the chalice, Evka says something about joining, and brothers, and sisters, but he can’t help feeling like he’s being only separated instead, a final cut from the notion of a normal life. But family, at least, is no longer a concern.
With the first gulp of the tainted blood, the world turns dark and silent.
He wakes up in bed inside one of the houses in the village. The coming to his senses is slow, sluggish; taking a single conscious breath tires him out, feels like taking a jump without the soothing landing. Stuck in the air, just trying to keep up the height. The nightmare he’d seen after drinking from the chalice mixes with the memories of his training, and when the archdemon opens its mouth, it speaks in Caterina’s voice: Push on.
He breathes again, pushing as ordered. It’s all the deepest-buried part of him knows.
His own breathing is the only thing he hears for a while, until he becomes aware of another sound: blade against wood. Once he tunes in, more sounds join — wood chips falling on the floor, light metallic clank, occasional grunts, and the persistent breathing of another person.
When Illario musters the strength to both open his eyes and sit up, he is not surprised only in the sense that signs gave Davrin’s presence away; the reason for it, however, eludes him.
“So I’m not by the Maker’s side, I take it?” he asks, weakly.
Davrin chuckles. “This looks like the Golden City to you?”
“Hm. I would expect wine and naked dancers.” Though there is a glass of water on his bedside, which he downs the moment it comes into sight. As far as satisfaction goes, no wine he drank before could compare.
“Not sure your Chantry would agree.”
“Well, I’m not asking their advice for how I’m supposed to spend my afterlife.”
If he even qualified for one. A feeling persisted that he deserved a spot in the Void rather than by the seat of the Maker. But today does not seem the day he finds that out.
He falls on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His eyes close involuntarily, but not without a tinge of fear: who knows what he’ll dream of next. He wouldn’t place bets on it being anything good.
“It wasn’t pity.” Davrin’s voice interrupts the silence. “That made me conscript you.”
Illario rolls his eyes. “Sure. Because everyone is always so transparent about their true intentions. Especially after getting called out on them.”
“You crows keep fucking each other up with how you live, but not everyone speaks in cipher.” The sounds of the wood-carving pause. “Most other people also don’t. You should start getting used to that.”
“You should stop telling me what to do,” he seethes. “Is it not enough that you dragged me into this? What more say do you want in my life?”
“None, actually. Just wanted to clear things up. So you aren’t mad for something that’s not true.”
“What is true?” Illario uses the little bodily strength he has left to sit up again and cross his arms. Their eyes meet. “Random impulses? Punishment for wounding your leader? Wouldn’t that be a great way to make me regret getting in your way for the rest of my life.”
“Reminded me of myself.”
“What?”
“Not fitting with the family. Looking for a way out. Thinking the only way out is through.”
“You don’t—”
“Before you figure out the worst way to take it, I’m not saying we are the same.” Davrin gets up from the chair. “Just that it felt like that for a moment. And, back in my time, I had someone who could back me up. But you didn’t. So that was that.”
Davrin heads for the door; Illario has to swallow the impulse of calling him back with the bitter taste of not knowing what exactly he would say.
He falls on the bed, and sleep blissfully takes him before he has to give this any further thought.
Nobody in the Grey Wardens gives a shit about Illario Dellamorte.
He expects to be shunned when he’s brought in and takes his joining just about in shackles, but to everyone else, it’s a matter of only passing interest. On his first day as a Warden, he finds out about two people who chose the order over being hanged, four taken straight from a prison, and an apostate who got herself conscripted to avoid the Templars. For the Wardens, complicated life stories seem akin to the darkspawn stench — an unfortunate commonplace that comes with the profession. Even if few are quite on his level, it still surprises no one to hear his life record isn’t exactly stellar.
Most importantly, no one around seems to have ever heard the family name. He introduces himself as simply Illario first, residually careful, but even when he grows bold enough to throw his last name at people, it is met only with a nod. The name that shook rooms, that he would flaunt around like a gold coin or drag like a heavy chain, has lost all of its meaning; Illario Dellamorte was gone, and just Illario was left behind to figure out existing as a single part.
His nights are spent in the hope that sleep comes soon and dreamless, days — the hope it’s not his turn to go on patrol and the growing suspicion the schedule is not tilted in his favour. He graduates from the nondescript leathers to the grey, the blue, and the gaudy, though he is spared from some of the worse violations of the sense of fashion he spots among other wardens roaming Hossberg.
A shipment from Treviso arrives about a week after his Joining, wordless, filled with his belongings and no notes attached. He picks his weapons out and burns the rest as kindling for that night’s dinner. The others cheer, getting to avoid woodcutting duty in a unique occurrence of his family history being useful. To other people, if not to him.
Throughout it all, there is Davrin.
Illario wasn’t sure if he had not burnt that bridge by his outbursts — or that he wouldn’t have more of them — but the other warden kept showing up at rates of frequency that raised suspicion. There is, of course, the never-ending matter of warden business, but Illario did not see Rook around half as often, which led him to believe it was the business Davrin chose to engage in out of his own unending volition.
“You doing okay?” Davrin asks one of these days.
“What are you, a mother hen?” Illario can’t help his own depreciating tone. Even if he doesn’t fully mean it, the words already out cannot be taken back, and apologies are just as out of the question.
Davrin takes it in stride with a snort. “I already have to babysit a griffon, so I’m not up for more parental obligations, thank you very much.”
That day’s excuse for Davrin’s visit was bringing Assan along to visit the family, and the griffons do not miss the chance to spread an extra fill of chaos around the keep. Antoine tries to rein them in, unsuccessfully, and Evka, just as unsuccessfully, chides him to leave them be until they tire out on their own. The other wardens are split between taking either side, which is working out for exactly no one — an all-around mess.
“It’s not the worst place in the world,” Illario says. “Though it leaves a lot to be desired.”
“What’s the worst place, then?”
“Tevinter.” Illario scrunches his nose. “At least here doesn’t have blood mages or bastardised Antivan cuisine.”
“None’s better than bastardised?” Davrin laughs.
“It shows respect and knowing local attempts cannot compare to the real thing. The rest is pure arrogance.”
One of the griffons knocks down an armour stand. The blacksmith joins the commotion on a side that’s none but his own. That helps nobody else.
“Do you miss it?” Davrin asks. “Antiva, the food there?”
“Well, yes, I miss eating good food. Like any sane man would.” His mouth waters just thinking about it, the exquisiteness he took for granted in the days there and missed every one that he was away. “The rest…”
Gondolas across the canals and the stench of the water. Crows perched on the rooftops, capes and feathers forever in the corner of his eye. Nights out. Some of the worst decisions known to man.
“The rest, I’m never getting back,” he finishes. “So there’s no point in thinking.”
Davrin says nothing. Two griffons grab something from the ground — something they shouldn’t have, Illario presumes by the shouting — and fly away swiftly, followed by the rest, and the wardens flowing out of the keep in pursuit.
Later, he thinks anyway.
It has a rhythm to it, the Warden life. Enjoyment isn’t intentionally included in its signature, but the bleakness isn’t perpetual, either. Darkspawn are still a target, and watching them writhe on the tip of his blade is still good. There are people he can make feel safe by picking out just the right words, and merchant discounts he can secure by intimidation, sweet talking, or uplifting the idea of the Wardens as Thedas’s greatest heroes. Despite his own expectations, he keeps stumbling into ways to make him useful. Wardens are good with darkspawn, but few are with people, even fewer trained for it the way he was.
What is even more unexpected is the way he is thanked for each service he provides, and not taken for granted or discarded as the lesser. He could get used to that.
There are, of course, also other wardens. They are still people, susceptible to short and long-term charms, many beautiful and battle-worn, not quite unlike many others he had met before. Still, something has him stop their and his own advances at the stage of flirting, never taking that next step. The persistence of that is troubling, but he has just as much trouble figuring out its cause.
“You and Davrin a thing?” The question comes from an elven woman, Claire, one he refused to take too far.
“No,” he fires out his answer immediately, followed by, “Why would you even think that?”
“The way he looks at you.” She shrugs. It irks him how natural and convinced she sounds about it. “The way you look at him when he comes over and keep cutting people off before the best part.”
“Force of habit.” It’s his turn to shrug. He hopes he looks just as nonchalant as she did. “Not my fault people just fall for me.”
“Your fault that you cause them to when you are already taken.”
“I am not—”
“So get better habits,” she cuts him off, keeping the last word as she leaves.
Alone, he has to grapple with what has just been said. He has been a grey warden for three months now, and in all that time, all he and Davrin had were looking and talking. Admittedly, Illario isn’t too familiar with the relationship progression that doesn’t include his hands in someone’s pants within a few hours after the first meeting, and time has moved so far since then.
How do I look at him? he asks himself. That others see it. How does he look at me?
The thought occupies his mind throughout the days that come. Treacherously, these are also the days Davrin does not visit the Anderfels, so he is left to stew inside his own mind with no clarity in sight. Occasionally, he ponders asking others for their thoughts on the matter, but the prospect of an answer is as terrifying as having none. The Crow training prepared him for much, but never that kind of torture.
Next time Davrin’s around, it seems like actual warden business, discussed with Evka and Antoine in hushed voices over those disgusting containers filled with blight samples. Rook’s with them, and all four share this stern, determined expression that would normally put him off approaching. Normal, however, is the opposite of how he’s been feeling lately.
“Rook. Davrin. What a pleasure.” His tone bears complete ignorance of the tense air, a conscious one. His eyes fall to Davrin first in a way he cannot help before he tears them away to look at all the others. “What brings you to our humble keep?”
“It’s none of your concern.” Rook’s response is curt and uninterested.
Unluckily for her, it does nothing to deter him. “Is it not? I’m a Warden, like everyone here. All related matters concern me.”
“He’s right,” Davrin chimes in. Illario’s heart skips a beat.
“There is a Blight eruption that needs to be destroyed,” Evka explains, amicably. Rook clicks her tongue off to the side. “Davrin and Rook are on it.”
“Would Davrin and Rook require assistance?” he asks. “I just so happen to be off-patrol duty today. And would cherish the chance to fight alongside such experienced wardens.”
“We’ll be taking Bellara with us.” Rook remains curt despite Evka’s peacemaking tendencies, unfazed by his attempted praise. “Three people are enough.”
“Three people, but only two wardens,” he persists. “When it can be three. The more of us, the better, no?”
He is right, he knows he’s right, and most importantly, Rook must also. One question left is whether she dislikes him enough to try to argue against the objectively correct course in front of the others.
“Make sure you keep up,” Rook says as she turns around. “No one pays me to look back to check if you haven’t tripped on a rock and broken your back.”
“Rook…” Davrin’s voice hangs between them, like something both offered and requested.
She straightens her back and turns around, her face now neutral, with a slight apologetic hint. “Just stay close.”
“I will.” He smiles, charming as he can be. “And I assure you, I’ve become quite proficient at navigating this terrain.”
The closer they get to the so-called eruption, the more he regrets inviting himself along. Each fight on their way is brutal — the darkspawn fight with a special kind of ferocity he’s never seen before, and pause their assault only when their hearts are no longer beating. It’s not enough for a strike to be lethal; the death must come swiftly, because the cursed things do not stop swinging as long as they retain even marginal control of their limbs.
Rook and Davrin fight together with the proficiency he envies. Their moves flow into one another, Rook leaving Davrin to cover her flank as she dashes forward, or covering Davrin’s own with a well-placed fireball or a toss of the mageknife. They make up spaces for him to fit in — Davrin more readily, of course — but Illario still wishes he were an intended part of their tandem, not a sudden addition.
At least, that stays his biggest wish before they reach their destination. Once the eruption is in sight, he wishes only for it to stop. The blighted call explodes in his head, echoing against the edges of his skull until it eviscerates all independent thought.
He grabs his head in his hands and screams, and through the screaming, he hears nothing else. But then he feels, an arm on his shoulder, then two, shakes and squeezes.
“It’s all right.”
He almost falls forward when he hears Davrin’s voice, staying on his feet through the force of sheer will.
“The eruption is…” he mumbles. “Mierda, it’s like the only thing in my head…”
“I know.” Davrin squeezes again. “But we’ll take it down. Together.”
Illario opens his eyes to see Davrin look at him with faith, and confidence, and hope, and Illario understands exactly what Claire meant back there, and how far he’d be willing to go to keep that gaze on himself.
“If Illario can’t take it, we have to get him out.”
Rook’s voice slashes their moment in two and, miraculously, she doesn’t look disapleased. But worn, instead, — sweating, with the pupil dilated; the eruption is taking its toll on her, too.
“Illario will be fine,” he answers for himself. He calls upon all of his fortitude to stay tall against the tide. “Let’s put an end to this thing.”
The explosion is the sweetest sound to his ears, and with the eruption gone, he is himself again for what feels like the first time in forever.
Rook breathes heavily by his side while Davrin checks the perimeter for stragglers or anything else of note, leaving them alone. Illario sees it as the perfect chance for a burning question.
“Why?” he asks.
“Why what?” She stares back. “You’ll have to be a lot more specific.”
Recognising his conversational failure, he, however, leaves no time for shame or contemplation, and immediately follows with, “Why let me into the order? You clearly hold no love for me.”
“Who am I to deprive Antiva of its own Loghain?” she laughs. “A chance like that only comes up once in life.”
“Loghain got his king killed and almost doomed an entire country.”
“Oh, please. You only didn’t kill a king because he didn’t happen to be in your way. Don’t tell me the respect for royalty would stop your hand otherwise.”
He frowns and chooses to sweep the thought under the rug. “Am I to understand that cursory amusement is your entire reasoning?”
“Davrin is my entire reasoning.” She stretches her back to stand tall and wipes the dust off her armour. “He picked you. And I trust him. All there’s to it.”
“Just like that?”
“I can’t say that I always understand what he sees in people.” Her enunciation of that word brings him a chuckle. “But I’ll stand by him. Unless, of course, you cause him harm, in which case…” She runs her finger across her neck with a politely neutral expression. “Just so we are clear on that.”
“Crystal.”
“Good.” She smiles in a way that feels more threatening than a scowl. “Now, is there anything else you’d like to ask?”
Another burning question floats up in his mind. A burning, and a buried one that he had sworn off asking, or wondering about, but…
“Does Lucanis…”
Does he hate me?
Does he wish he had killed me?
Does he wish I had killed him?
“As is with last time, I can only answer questions that are fully formed,” Rook intones.
“Did he say anything about me?”
Rook clears her throat, “That fucking Illario,” and delivers the best Lucanis impression he has ever heard.
Davrin finds them in a burst of shared laughter, a question clearly written on his face, then turned to words. “What do you two have to laugh about?”
“Oh, you know,” Rook waves him away, “warden business and such.”
Davrin looks unconvinced.
Illario decides some things are best discussed only once.
He’s travelled enough of Thedas to see beauty in all kinds of landscapes, sprawling forests, cathedral spires, deserts, and the wonders brought by magic. The grove in Lavendel, however, stands out among them all. Perhaps it is the contrast, the wildly blooming flowers in the last place he would expect. Lavendel was the place of a last stand, desperate survivors clinging to the little left in their hands. Now, it showed itself as a place of rebirth that made it dangerously easy to believe such truth extended to more than just the soil.
“Thinking of something?”
Rook speaks with Evka and Antoine to the side, leaving Davrin and Illario to walk around alone.
“We could sell those buds for a hefty price,” Illario deflects. “We used to have similar ones back at the Villa. Some people go insane for colour blue.”
Davrin bends down, pulling a single flower out of the ground, as Illario watches him, befuddled. “And what about you?”
“Are you…” Illario clears his throat, trying to keep his composure. “Trying to gift me a flower?”
Davrin shrugs. “Depends on whether you want to take it.”
He tears it from the other warden’s hand before the attempted composure brings him back to his senses. When he is back to them, it’s already too late to give it back, and then too early for him to come up with any explanations for his behaviour. Apart from the supposed obvious.
“I’m not…” Illario begins when he gathers himself. “I’m not good at… this. It’s not what I’m used to.”
“Do you want to get better?”
The straightforward question sweeps him off his feet again. The flower looks incredibly fragile in his hand.
“I…” I don’t know, what if I can’t, what if— “Yes,” Illario responds. “I do.”
“Then I suggest we swing by the Antivan eluvian to grab your so-called “good food” and then find a clearing in Arlathan to put it to the test.” Davrin grins. “How’s that?”
Illario evaluated his options. Now, it finally feels like things are moving at something closer to his preferred pace. “As long as I get to pick all the food.”
“Wouldn’t dream of getting in your way.”
But it’s a good thing that you did back there, Illario thinks as they exit the grove. Wardens may be better than death, after all.