heartslogos:

“There’s a raven perched on top of the main stair bannister,” Krem says when he finally manages to find Lavellan through Skyhold’s many twisting corridors. Finding her to report this not so strange anomaly was not his goal. That’s more of a thing to do on the side. Mostly Krem is just looking for where his room his.

There are parts about Skyhold – living castle, living castle grounds, apparently living mountain – Krem deeply enjoys. The changing scenery that promises something new and exciting about working in one place for extended periods of time without the drudgery and boredom associated with long jobs like these, the suspicious but not unwelcome supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, an always changing catalogue of things to read, and watching Dorian Pavus grow increasingly frustrated with the apparent disregard being shown towards science and understandable phenomena occurring.

The latter is especially fruitful.

However Krem does not joy getting perpetually lost for hours out of his day because Skyhold is – at best, playful with how people get places, at worst downright sadistic and cruel about what it shows along the way to getting someone to their goal.

“Did the roof open up again?” Lavellan asks, because Krem’s walked into foyer of Syhold next to aforementioned stairs several times and seen strange trees growing where no trees were growing before, stretching up into the sky where there was no sky before. “If we wanted more outdoors we’d go outdoors, I keep saying.”

“Keep saying it, because Skyhold isn’t listening,” Krem says. “No, the roof was fine, I didn’t see any vegetation or anything different. There was just a raven sitting there.”

“And?”

“And nothing, I just thought you should know,” Krem says, “Because these things usually are some sort of sign that you need to know about.”

Lavellan nods, “Let’s go see the raven, then.”

“I was actually hoping to go to my room,” Krem says.

Lavellan tilts her head, “Hoping?”

“Skyhold’s had me going around in not-circles for about twenty minutes,” Krem says. “I don’t think Skyhold was having me look for you, otherwise I’d have found you right away.”

“Fair enough, find anything interesting?” Lavellan asks as she starts walking towards where Krem came from. Krem turns around to follow her and is completely unsurprised to find that as soon as they turn the corner they’re standing in front of the main stairs.

The raven stares at them and then proclaims, “The dead will claim what is theirs; the serpent swallows its own tail; the serpent is a dragon.”

Krem watches Lavellan’s face.

She looks annoyed, “That’s poetic.”

She looks at him, “That’s poetic, right?”

“Pretty sounding, yeah,” Krem says, “What’s it mean? Should I warn the Chief?”

“It’s a raven of ill omens,” Lavellan says, “I somehow find it surprising it hasn’t shown up sooner.”

“A what?”

Krem turns to look at there’s a second raven. “Is this an attempted murder?”

Lavellan laughs and nudges his arm with hers, “Cute.”

Krem grins at her as the second raven looks straight at the first one and croaks out, “the messenger is always sacrificed; the blood of ravens runs smooth and clean; the stones will have their toast; raise a glass to survival.”

“Oh, this is going to get crowded,” Lavellan murmurs just as a third raven alight onto the bannister next to the second one and says, “one should not blame the mouth of the message; the root of the poison lies beyond the tongue; seek the source.”

“Are they just declaring ill intent at each other?” Krem asks and Lavellan rolls her eyes and gestures for him to follow her.

“Well, I didn’t like the first one, so I’m assuming that’s what called the second, and I guess the first one didn’t much like what the second one was saying so that brings along the third, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to ask Skyhold for a cat.”

–

“You found the larder,” Solas says as Lavellan glares at the large stone cellar walls. There are entire aisles full of food.

Jars without a single speck of dust full of jams and jellies and preserves of all sorts. Barrels upon barrels. Somehow there’s entire bushels of apples and pears and pomegranates and baskets of eggs and huge rounds of cheese and cloth-wrapped loaves of bread. There are herbs and vegetables hanging from the ceiling and cuts of meat and –

The sheer amount of food and ingredients is staggering.

“I can’t believe,” Lavellan says through her teeth as she pushes down on her irritation and the throbbing pain in her hand and her temples, “You actually had me buy groceries when you had all this. Do you even know what food wastage is?”

Solas – the ghost of him, her imagined figment, whatever – is silent before he says, so softly, so painfully, “I haven’t seen the larder open for anyone in centuries.”

Lavellan bites her tongue and reminds herself of the poison on it. His and hers. She shouldn’t be feeling sorry for him.

“This was her space,” Solas says and something inside of her makes her turn her head to the side and she sees a huge fire place an hearth, ready and waiting with stacks upon stacks of firewood. “Her domain. When she – when she was displaced it disappeared with her. I didn’t think it would ever return.”

Lavellan wonders how many more parts of Skyhold vanished. She wonders if that’s part of why Skyhold seems to crumble in on itself, the lack of its own internal organs.

Is that what happened to Solas?

Lavellan goes and runs her hand over solid wood tables and shelves. No dust. No sign of time’s passage.

The apples are red and perfect. No bruises. No sign of mold or damage. Same for the lettuce and the carrots – the potatoes don’t even have shoots. The peaches smell fresh and are firm underneath her touch.

She breaks a loaf of bread and it smells like it just came out of an oven.

“How much is there?” Lavellan asks, intent on bringing as much of this up to the kitchen as she can. Who knows when she’ll find the stores again?

“I don’t know,” Solas says, sounding far away and watery, like he’s a child’s chalk drawing washing away underneath a patient and indifferent hose, “It was never my place to know. Everything, possibly. Anything.”

Lavellan picks up an apple and bites into it, the juice is tart and runs down her chin as she examines the room, mind turning as she tries to figure out what to prioritize first.

Everything, Skyhold seems to whisper back to her. For you, anything.

Except a door, Lavellan thinks. Everything except a way away.

I really really love living houses. Houses of all sorts, but living ones are best.