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Rook (or Watcher Ingellvar, depending on who was asking) moved into Lace’s room without saying anything to the rest of the team because it ultimately didn’t matter—one of them, probably Neve, sniffed that out right away, and so everyone knew within a span of a week. Word spread quickly in the Veilguard. Announcements were pointless when you had an ace detective ("So...haven't seen you around the library much lately."), an elf who lived for drama ("Is this, y'know, like the next official step in your guys' relationship? How does that work, anyways? Hey, if your room is empty now, are the fish okay? Do they need to be fed?"), and a keen-nosed demon ("Rook. You smell like soil. And...old leather.") all within a stone's throw.
There was still a tremendous amount of work to be done for them all. Lucanis was often away in Treviso, helping the Crows pick up the last pieces of the city and put them right, and Bellara took frequent trips to Arlathan for research purposes—surveying for a place to put the Archive—and Neve cut her time between the Lighthouse and Minrathous, working the odd job cases with Raya whenever one crossed their desks. Taash was off on a dragon hunt in southern Rivain, which he only knew about because he’d managed to catch them before they shrugged on their pack and walked straight out the eluvian. Emmrich, who’d received an offer to come guest lecture a series of very advanced courses on the Fade and its properties, had asked Ingellvar if he wanted to come with him to the Grand Necropolis, maybe pay a visit to Nevarra, but Ingellvar had declined, politely, citing the need to finish a few things around the Lighthouse.
Which was a lie, and Emmrich had probably known that, but he'd simply nodded, put a hand on Ingellvar’s shoulder, and told him that he was always welcome to join him in the Necropolis, if the need should ever arise. Ingellvar wondered if he was making a mistake in staying put, but he couldn’t summon up the desire to go somewhere with so many people, with people who knew him as Watcher and the hero who’d defeated the Evanuris. The thought bore down on his mind like the stonework armor of the Watchers.
So, he remained. And Lace, remained, too.
That morning, they stayed in late, in their nest of blankets and bedrolls—who was going to tell them to get up, anyways?—and Lace read the serial that Bellara loaned her, flipping through the rustling pages and making noises like “Oh?” or “Seriously?” occasionally. Ingellvar tried to doze back off to sleep, but it eluded him, and he stared at the opposite wall for several minutes, watching the pinpricks of light dance around the room and the way the sun cast shadows off the curling plants.
Lace’s room was cozy in ways and wild in others. He had called her “only semi-domesticated” once, and she’d spluttered for a few seconds before quietly agreeing—after all, she still preferred tree roots to feather beds.
When the wall no longer entertained him, he rolled over and looked at Lace. She was so beautiful, always, but even more so when she was able to relax, and the stress receded from her face, even just a little, and she looked like any other woman in the world, reading her stories in bed, far away from the madness. Only she was his, and he was hers, without question. For that, he counted himself lucky.
“What?” she asked, glancing over at him.
“Nothing. Just looking at you.”
“Why?”
“Best thing to look at in the room,” he said, earnestly.
“You’re ridiculous.”
Something must have drifted across her mind and snagged, because abruptly she closed the sheaf of serial pages, and set it aside. She stared out to the door.
“It’s weird being here without anyone,” she said. “I can—I can just feel it, you know? All the empty rooms.”
“It’s nice when we have everyone,” he agreed.
“Are you doing okay? You seem…sad lately. I don’t know, just when I see you sometimes, you look like you’re an ocean away.”
“Oh. That obvious, huh?”
“I do know you a little better than most.”
He sighed, and then, at length, said, “I don't know why I'm sad. If it is sadness. I mean, Davrin, and Assan, and Varric, of course—I miss them. I wish they were here. But there’s something else—I don’t know what it is, Lace, and it follows me around, all the time. It feels like grief, but it’s hollow inside, where the person should be, and I don’t know what to make of that. It confuses me.”
“That sounds pretty confusing, yeah.” She reached over and ran a hand through his hair. “Is that why you didn’t go with Professor Volkarin?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been feeling lost, too,” she admitted. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love sharing my knowledge of the Stone with the other dwarves. It’s almost as good as when I was a scout with the Inquisition, you know, helping people, showing them new ways of getting through things.” Her hands were automatically beginning to braid his hair, although he didn’t have much in the way of braiding material. “But after the elven gods? After Solas? I don’t know. It’s not the same. More than usual after a world-ending event, I guess,” she added, with a dry laugh to punctuate her last sentence.
“I—we—had a purpose. And the fight’s not over, there’re Venatori and Antaam out there just waiting to make trouble, but it feels like the fight’s over, inside my head. But if I embrace that, then, well, I’m worried I’ll lose my edge. We’ve been doing so much. The fighting and the politics and the cleaning up of Treviso and Lavendel and Minrathous...if I don’t feel like there’s something looming over my head all the time, am I useful at that anymore? Am I worth anything, anymore?”
“Of course you are,” she said.
“I just can’t convince myself that it’s true.”
“Look,” she said, “I am bad at my emotions. You know this. They’re baffling and annoying, and I really just want them to go away most of the time. So, whatever I’m about to say, I might be wrong about.”
He felt her finish one tiny braid and move onto another. In her defense, she was getting better at talking about her feelings, especially after her encounter with the Titan, and he didn’t mind so much whether she was right or wrong. It was nice to just talk to her, to say things he couldn’t bring himself to admit to the others, even if they were his close friends.
“That’s all right,” he said.
“Have you ever taken a break?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I mean a real break. No fighting, no politics, no Blight, no anything.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it, chewing his lower lip. “I—I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’re realizing you don’t need to run around like a crazed nug all the time,” she said. “I mean, you defeated like, what, five? Six dragons? Some people only ever defeat one. Most people get eaten! You helped the Crows in Treviso, and the Shadow Dragons in Minrathous. You basically saved Arlathan Forest. Do you realize how much you’ve done?”
“Well, I had help,” he said, as if that was any sort of rebuttal.
“My point—” and she poked him in the chest “—is that you might not know what it feels like to slow down. And not just for a day or two, for a while.”
“The threat’s still out there, Lace—”
“And we’re dealing with it. Lucanis, Neve, Bellara, they’re handling it. Emmrich and Taash, they’re where they should be, too, doing their thing to help people.”
“And you, Lace Harding?” He let a small smile slip. “Shouldn’t you be out there, too?”
“You are my bigger problem right now.”
“Ouch,” he said.
“I mean—”
He took one of her hands and kissed her knuckles. “I know.”
She ran her thumb along the curve of his jaw, and he kissed her hand again before releasing it. They looked at each other for a long moment.
“Was any of that helpful?” asked Lace, her voice just above a whisper.
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh, good.”
“Will you come with me today?”
“Where?”
“I was going to walk through the Crossroads a while. Clear my head. They’re quiet now—I feel like I can finally appreciate how scenic everything is.”
“I’d love to,” she replied.
“It’s a date.”
She smiled, leaned over, and kissed his forehead. He shut his eyes, imagining that aching ball of not-quite-grief—perhaps more than grief, then—inside himself. He held it in his hands. He let it melt, like liquid metal, into the creases of his palms. It wasn’t over, just like that; it was far from over, and he would carry it a while longer, he realized, maybe even forever, after everything he’d seen and done, but for the first time since they’d gotten back from Minrathous—for the first time since they’d gotten back from Tearstone Island—it didn’t ache quite as much, anymore.