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nerdanel01 · 3 months

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All Things Grow, All Things Go - Pt. II

Emmrich Volkarin/F!Rook (*Emmrich POV) 3k+ | SFW EXCERPT: Mindful of the fact that Wilfred had needed to rouse him—that Agnes herself might still be asleep—he knocked on her door, softly at first.

“Agnes?”

Emmrich waited… and waited. Listening for the rustle of bedsheets or the pad of her footsteps. When only silence greeted him, he knocked again, a bit more loudly this time.

“Agnes, it’s Emmrich. You needn’t speak to me if you don’t want to, I understand if you are still upset. But you missed breakfast—I did not want you to go hungry. Will you please open the door?”

9:50 Dragon

Flinching at the urgent touch of someone’s hand on his shoulder, Emmrich awoke.

He blinked blearily, taking in his surroundings—cold hearth, cold tea on the tray beside him, Wilfred’s bony hand on his shoulder—and recognized at last he had fallen asleep in his study, slumped into his armchair. Well, that certainly explained the sore ache in his back, and the awful crick in his neck. After his disastrous conversation with Agnes the night before, Emmrich had lingered in the study, hoping she might return after she had a chance to calm down and think things over. In truth he had wanted instead to chase after her, to beg her to listen to him, to try to make her understand… but he loved her, and it was all too plain he had hurt her. The kinder thing, he thought—the less selfish thing—was to give her some space.

Emmrich sat up, stretching his arms above his head and sighing in satisfaction as something in his back popped into its proper place, realigning. Glancing up at Wilfred at last, he asked, “What is it?”

Wilfred lifted a skeletal arm to point at the water clock in the corner, the only veritable indication of time passing in the windowless Necropolis. By the water level Emmrich saw he had slept through the night; the breakfast hour was just beginning in the dining hall.

Energized by the thought of seeing Agnes there, Emmrich stood, stretching once more for good measure. It relieved the ache in his back, but did nothing to calm the gymnastics of his stomach. How angry would she be with him, now that the night had passed? More resentful? Less? Would she spare a word for him—or even a glance? That would hurt, if she could not look at or speak to him, but it did not matter. Likely he deserved it, after how upset he had made her. At least if he could see her, though—even just catch a glimpse at her from across the room—he would be reassured: that things would turn out for the best, in time. That he had made the right choice.

“I’d better join the other Watchers for breakfast,” Emmrich told Wilfred, combing a hand through his hair, trying to tame his bedhead back into a pleasing shape. It was unlike him to wander around so disheveled and ungroomed—unshaven, even!—but today, that could wait until after he saw Agnes. Certainly she could not think less of him after last night, and any errant whiskers on his jaw would not lower her opinion of him any farther than it had already sunk. “If Agnes comes by, will you please send her down to the dining hall?”

Wilfred made a short, baying sort of sound—more articulate than the feeble moans Alfred had been exclusively capable of producing, but still less than language—and nodded his head in acknowledgement of the request. Satisfied with Wilfred’s answer, Emmrich left the study, fighting the urge to quicken the pace of his steps the whole way to the dining hall.

But Agnes was not there when he arrived. The hall was already nearly full, the bulk of the Mourn Watch gathered around the two twin banquet tables, chatting animatedly over their coffee and eggs. Emmrich scanned the room for Agnes’ face a second time, just to be sure he had not missed her at first glance—but she was nowhere to be seen.

There was an open spot at the table beside Myrna; Emmrich thought it prudent not to sit there, at least not today. Instead he consigned himself to the far end of the banquet table nearest to the door, where he could easily keep an eye on the latecomers as they trickled in for breakfast. He dropped a few slices of fruit onto his plate, pear and melon, but it was mostly for show, a prop to occupy his hands and to excuse his presence in the dining hall as he waited for Agnes to arrive. Emmrich was not accustomed to being this nervous; he found the anxious clenching of his stomach had quite spoiled his appetite.

Every time he detected any hint of movement from the entryway, he looked up from the kaleidoscopic arrangement of fruit he was pushing around on his plate—but none of the latecomers turned out to be Agnes. By the time the breakfast hour was waning and the dining hall was beginning to empty, she still was nowhere to be seen.

That was troubling. No matter how angry with him she may have been, it wasn’t like Agnes to sleep in late, or to miss a meal. It would be best, Emmrich knew, to give her space—the whole point of this, of ending their professional partnership, had been to give her more space from him—but he could not resist the impulse to check on her, as paternal and unwelcome as it may have been. Before all the food was cleared away, Emmrich filled a cup with hot tea, put two almond croissants on a plate—Agnes’ favorite—and carried both to her room.

Mindful of the fact that Wilfred had needed to rouse him—that Agnes herself might still be asleep—he knocked on her door, softly at first.

“Agnes?”

Emmrich waited… and waited. Listening for the rustle of bedsheets or the pad of her footsteps. When only silence greeted him, he knocked again, a bit more loudly this time.

Was she sleeping? Or was she sulking, punishing him with her silence, her refusal to answer—just as she had pulled away from him when he had tried last night to take her hand? Again, probably deserved and Emmrich wouldn’t blame her, but her failure to answer now was putting grand, paranoid imaginings in his head, and the anxious knot in his stomach was tightening, mounting into a dull panic.

He knocked on the door a third time, with force. “Agnes—”

But before Emmrich could finish, the door popped open, revealing darkness within. Had she kept the door unlocked while she slept…?

Then the smell hit him. Lye and lavender oil, her cleaning agents of choice. Emmrich’s dull panic rose to full alarm, his breathing quick and shallow, adrenaline stiffening the muscles in his legs. His hands shook as he summoned a mage light to illuminate the darkness within, but his heart was already pounding violently, heavy in his chest; it knew what he was about to find without needing to see it:

The hearth, cold and empty. The sterile gleam of the floor, shining in the mage light. The bed made—sheets and blankets tucked straight and tight around the mattress—empty.

Teacup and plate smashed against the floor before Emmrich even realized he’d dropped them, scattering shattered porcelain and pastry crumbs across the room, the splash of tea spraying the hem of his trousers and puddling across the too-clean floor.

‘No. No, no, please, Maker, no—’

He crossed into the room, stepping directly into the tea puddle as he sped to the desk, pulling each of the knobs, peering into each of the drawers, his breath growing a little more shallow as every drawer turned up empty. His heart was sinking through him, heavier than a ship’s anchor. He raced to the wardrobe, elated at first to see that it was not wholly bereft, only for his hopes to crash all over again when he saw that it was only Agnes’ set of ceremonial Watcher robes that hung within it, none of her blouses or dresses. His heart was breaking. The nightstand beside the bed—those drawers, too, were empty.

But the bed, he realized—to his complete and utter horror—was not empty. Not as empty as he had thought at first glance.

His hands trembled as he picked the program off the bed, shaking so violently that when he held it, the program fluttered, as though it was billowing in a breeze. The Elixir of Love. The first opera they had seen together summers ago, when he had waltzed with Agnes after in the gardens… when he had first felt the conscious desire to kiss her, when at last his true feelings for her had become woefully and unavoidably plain to him.

He felt lightheaded; his knees felt weak. He turned his body around and lowered himself, slowly and unsteadily, to perch on the very edge of the bed, feeling utterly wretched as he stared at the program in his hands. It was creased and wrinkled, worn and much loved, as though she had often held it, caressed it, treasured it in the years that she’d kept it. And though she had penned no note, it was clear to him the program had been set out this way for him to find, no other.

‘She loves me!’ Nemorino had sung at last in his final aria, full of pathos as much as exultation. ‘She loves me; I know it, I know it.’ But of course, what Nemorino did not know—what was plain, at that point, for the audience to see—was that this recent turn of events had nothing to do with the sham “elixir” at all; that Adina, the woman he desired, had loved him in return all along.

Impulsively he balled his hand into a fist, crumpling the program into a ball within it, unable to bear the sight of it. But then his eyes caught on the lazurite ring on his hand, and his guilt and his shame doubled.

What a fool he had been! What a hopeless idiot! How long had he denied his desire, his deep longing for her, telling himself he could not possibly have her? When all along she had been at his side, waiting to be noticed. Waiting to be loved back. Myrna had been right about them, or right enough, and instead of listening to her and wondering if Myrna might have seen something between them that even Emmrich himself was blind to, he had done everything in his power to push Agnes away.

An aim in which he had succeeded spectacularly: she was gone.

‘So go find her!’

A fool’s hope, maybe, but the only one he had. How much time had passed? How far could she have gone? It would have taken her time, Emmrich imagined, to pack, to clean. There was no way of telling from her room how long ago she had left. Maybe, maybe…!

He leapt to his feet, shoving the fisted program into his pocket, and tore into the hallway. The study was closest; he headed there first. Opened the door with such volume and force that Wilfred startled, all his bones jostling in shock at the sudden entrance.

“Wilfred, has Agnes come by…?”

But the thrall only shook his head; no.

Leaving the study door ajar in his haste, Emmrich headed further down the hall to the Mourn Watch library. Trying not to think of all the terrible things he had said to Agnes yesterday. ‘Do you ever think perhaps we are too close?’ Trying not to retrace every word she had said to him in return, each of them burying more sharply and more painfully into his heart, now that he understood.

‘You are that eager to be rid of me?’

‘What did I do wrong to deserve this?’

‘It would have been better for me to never have come here!’

He raced into the library, footsteps pounding, chest heaving, fighting for breath. There was barely anyone there at this hour of the day, but one of the ancient thralls that helped keep the shelves organized was already at work, standing high up on one of the ladders, reshelving books.

“Gunther, have you seen Agnes?”

“Not since last week,” Gunther replied, somewhat tartly. “When you see her, do remind her that she has several volumes in her possession that are overdue for return…”

But Emmrich was already back in the hall, taking it at a flat out run, having fully abandoned any sense of decorum. Back to the dining hall; perhaps he had just missed her. Hoping beyond hope to find her there. Drowning in all the memories that were washing over him, all that had transpired between them, all that he had so woefully misunderstood.

‘I have cherished every hour I have worked with you,’ Agnes had said, when she had presented him with the ring. With a ring. Had he really not perceived the symbolism of that gift, the circle around his finger like a lover’s endless promise? Or had he simply refused to believe it, to accept what the ring had really meant? ‘Who else in my life would I give such a gift to, if not you?’

Commander Johanna was the only one left in the dining hall, pouring herself one last cup of coffee from the carafe on the tabletop. She looked up at Emmrich as he rushed in, her features creasing into a frown.

Breathlessly, he asked, “Have you seen Agnes?”

“Why are you asking?” No small amount of suspicion in her voice.

“She’s gone,” Emmrich answered, too panicked and heartbroken to be mortified by the way his voice cracked over the last word.

“Gone?” Johanna pressed him, an edge to her voice. “What do you mean, ‘she’s gone’? Gone where?”

“I don’t know,” Emmrich told her, close to tears. “Her room is empty, there’s no sign of her—I have to—!”

He raced past Johanna, down the stairs at the far end of the dining hall to the kitchens as Johanna called after him:

“Oh, well done, Emmrich! I told you to let me talk to her first! What did you say to that poor woman?!”

But Emmrich was not paying attention. Nothing Johanna said to him now could wound him more deeply than he was already doing himself, bruising and bleeding himself on all the terrible things he’d said and done, all of the ways he had been completely blind. But it could not be too late. He would not give in, not yet—would not let himself think he had lost the chance to make things right.

And yet, the kitchens—empty. The sparring room, the apothecary—both empty, Agnes nowhere to be found.

How far could she have gotten? Where, really, could she have gone? It could only have been a few hours since she had left the Necropolis—Emmrich could not fathom, refused to believe she had already left Nevarra City.

He had not changed his clothes nor so much as washed his face, looking (he was sure) entirely unpresentable as he dashed down the Necropolis steps and into the city streets. At this hour few businesses were open, save for the cafes, already setting out freshly baked pastry and brewing fine Antivan coffee. These, Emmrich checked first, beginning at the ones he knew to be Agnes’ favorites. But she was nowhere to be found, and none of the proprietors had seen a woman fitting her description. Where was she? Sweat trickled down his brow, made his shirt stick to his back as he raced next to the druffalo cart station on the eastern edge of the city, where passenger carts, for a small fee, would transport people north and south along the Imperial Highway.. No Agnes. Finally he headed north, to the docks; had she, perhaps, booked passage on a boat? Where would she go, out in the world, all by herself? On the way he stopped at all the horse traders, but none of them had sold a steed yet that morning, or the night before. No luck at the docks, either, though he had pushed through the crowds of people eager to book passage on the Minanter, peering into each of the faces of the people gathered there… wondering, in the depths of his self-loathing, if it were possible that Agnes hated him so deeply after all those things he had said to her, that she might glamor herself, disguise her face from him just to avoid the onerous task of having to speak to him.

He had run circles around the city. He could not remember the last time he had run anywhere without Agnes at his side, fleeing from some mystery of the Necropolis, Agnes throwing arcane darts over her shoulder at whatever was pursuing them. His heart was pounding; he had sweat through his shirt. It was in this state—disheveled, unkempt, exhausted—that he had at last made his way to the theater district, to the opera house.

The square outside of the theater was silent, empty, an eerie contrast to the space as he had otherwise known it: thronging with people, well fed and well dressed and well drunk, merrily proceeding through the tall arches into the lobby beyond. Now, it was sleepy, the box office not yet open for ticket sales. The loudest sound was the patter of the fountain, splashing gaily in the center of the square, sparkling in the morning sun. A flock of pigeons cooed around its base, the whole flock taking off in a panic as Emmrich trudged through their ranks, dropping at last to sit at the fountain’s edge… staring up at the opera house, its travertine facade shining blindingly white, like a holy accusation.

Emmrich balanced his elbows on his knees, and took his head into his hands.

He had hoped against hope he would find Agnes here, but there was no sign of her. And yet though he did not see her, he could not get the image of her out of his head: Agnes, clutching their tickets with her hands covered in little lace gloves, flashing him breathlessly delighted smiles as they queued to get into the theater. Agnes, throwing a silver coin into the very fountain on which she sat, refusing to confide in him her wish. Agnes, barefoot and uninhibited, humming in the jasmine-scented moonlight.

…Agnes, looking up into his face under that same silver moonlight, waiting for him to kiss her. To finally see her.

‘She loves me, she loves me! I know it, I know it…’

His body curled in on itself, as though he was protecting himself from an oncoming blow; there was a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with the distance he’d run. The despair, the sheer weight of the mistakes he had made threatened to crush him.

That impossible, enduring affection—the kind of love strong enough to conquer even death, the kind of love he had perhaps wanted but never truly believed he’d have himself—he had almost had it.

Or worse, he had it exactly, and he had not merely let it slip through his fingers, he had chased it away.

For Agnes was gone—utterly lost to him, that much was clear. She had disappeared so neatly, without a trace. Oh, Johanna would send trackers after her, bounty hunters, surely, (it would have been professional neglect not to do so—the Mourn Watch kept too many secrets that they could not risk getting loose) but Emmrich did not believe for a moment they would be successful in finding her.

“Please,” he spoke under his breath, to no one in particular. To Andraste and the Maker, perhaps, though he had never strongly believed in either. “Please, let her be safe.”

But no, not just safe. As the sweat cooled on his body, as the fountain sprayed at his back and his heart rate slowed and he felt himself growing uncomfortably cold, Emmrich knew it was more than that. Safety, yes, at the very least. But after all the years she had devoted herself to him—all the years he had been determined to see her affection as daughterly and nothing more—she was owed far more than just safety.

With as much conviction and faith as he could muster, he spoke his last wish for her to the quiet morning:

“Please, let her be happy. Let her be loved.”

#emmrich volkarin #emmrich volkahrin #emmrook #dragon age emmrich #emmrich the necromancer #fanfic #pain?? did someone ask for more pain??#eat up me hearties yo ho

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